Nine face suspended prison sentences for online attacks targeting Brigitte Macron

Nine people face up to 12 months’ suspended jail sentences for their roles in an online campaign that accused Brigitte Macron, the wife of President Emmanuel Macron, of being a transgender woman.

The trial of 10 people involved in the ‘fake news’ campaign began on Monday, October 27 and continued yesterday (Tuesday, October 28). Mrs Macron was not present at the  magistrates' court in Paris.

Prosecutor Hervé Tétier requested jail time of between three and 12 months suspended for nine of the accused, along with fines of up to €8,000. Community service sanctions have been requested for the 10th person.

Defendant Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, aged 41 and a marketing executive, who used the alias Zoé Sagan, is accused of being the main instigator of the transphobic conspiracy campaign, alongside gallery owner Bertrand S. and ‘medium’ Delphine J., who was known by the pseudonym Amandine Roy.

Ms J., as Amandine Roy, was previously in court in 2024 over claims on her YouTube channel that Mrs Macron was actually her “own younger brother (Jean-Michel Trogneux)”, after Mrs Macron took her to court for libel.

Fines of €4,000 and €3,000 respectively, have also been requested for Mr S. and Ms J in this latest case.

All defences have now been heard. A final judicial decision is expected on January 5, 2026, said FranceInfo court reporter Mathilde Goupil, who has been present at both days of the trial.

‘Artistic AI experiment’

The offending tweets at the heart of the trial claimed that “the Brigitte Macron affair is a shocking state secret involving paedophilia condoned by the state”. Mr Poirson-Atlan’s X account was suspended in July 2024, but had previously been linked to conspiracy theorists, and been the subject of several online complaints.

The 10 accused claimed that their posts were intended to be “humorous”, and that they “have the right to ask questions” about the identity of France’s ‘first lady’.

Mr Poirson-Atlan’s defence was heard on October 28. He claimed that the offending messages, including four key tweets (posts on the website formerly known as Twitter, now known as X) from 2023 and 2024, were written by “artificial intelligence (AI)” rather than himself, and were an “artistic experiment”.

He said he had fed the AI “information about the affair”, and that he had created a new type of “literary genre of fictional notes”.

“Authors take notes. But today, the Moleskine notebook has been replaced by X. It is a kind of contemporary [coffee shop],” he said. “It is Zoé Sagan who speaks [on X], not me. I created this character, like Flaubert's ‘Madame Bovary’”. While on the stand, he repeatedly referred to his pseudonym of ‘Zoé Sagan’, and spoke in the third person. 

“It's artificial intelligence that writes, but you proofread and validate?” the judge asked. Mr Poirson-Atlan replied: “Yes,” but denied that he always “endorsed” what he shared. “Zoé Sagan covers all current affairs,” he said.

Mr Poirson-Atlan has denied that his Twitter account could have played a “significant role” in spreading rumours about Mrs Macron, and called the trial “reverse cyberbullying”. 

He said that US political influencer, Candace Owens – who has also spoken about the rumour – was much more influential in spreading the rumour than him (the Macrons have filed a separate lawsuit against Ms Owens).

Freedom of expression?

Mr Poirson-Atlan’s lawyer has described the trial as a question of “freedom of expression”, and criticised the case as a “show trial”.

Lawyers for the accused have questioned why their clients are being targeted, when comedians are able to make “transphobic” jokes without appearing in court. They also said that the “mass media” has wrongly painted the accused as “transphobic harassers who endanger democracy”.

Lawyer for Ms Delphine J., Maud Marian, said that “freedom of expression still applies to conspiracy theorists and people on the far-right”, and added that Mr and Mrs Macron had themselves “spread the rumours” about Mrs Macron’s ‘trans identity’ by publicly talking about the issue.

The lawyers for the defendants have also sought to show how the case has negatively affected their clients’ lives, including causing them to (variously) lose their jobs, fall into debt, and move home. 

One lawyer added that his clients were being put on trial simply for the “crime of laughing”, and that they did not belong to a “transphobic mob”. One of his clients had experienced harassment themselves, and had been bullied as a child, he added, asking the judge to acquit and “not ask for a single penny” in fines.

Another lawyer for the defendants said that the prosecution had failed to show “the link of causality between these tweets and the worsening of Brigitte Macron’s mental or physical health”.

Mrs Macron’s lawyer Jean Ennochi dismissed these claims and one of Mrs Macron's daughters, Tiphaine Auzière, had her testimony read out in court by her mother’s lawyers. Ms Auzière denied that the campaign had not affected Mrs Macron. 

“It is important to express the harm that was done to my mother,” she said. “I have really seen a change and a deterioration in her life [as a result of this campaign].”

The ‘transgender/born as a man/actually her brother’ rumours have taken several forms over the past five years, and Mrs Macron has repeatedly taken alleged instigators to court.

For example, in 2021, around 60,000 Tweets were published using the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux (from the rumour that claimed that Mrs Macron had been born a man named Jean-Michel, with her maiden surname of Trogneux). Some users also claimed that Mrs Macron was not the biological mother of her three children.