Brigitte Macron has been given a male name on her personal tax record by a group of hackers amid conspiracies over her real gender.
The First Lady of France has long been the subject of rumours questioning her gender, with online trolls falsely claiming that her real name is Jean-Michel Trogneux.
Attacks on the 72-year-old recently went as far as hacking into her personal tax account and changing her name to ‘Jean-Michel, known as Brigitte Macron’, Mrs Macron’s chief of staff Tristan Bromet told French news channel BFMTV.
According to Mr Bromet, the French president‘s wife was shocked to see her legal name had been changed by hackers in her personal tax account.
Mrs Macron has since filed a complaint and two people involved in the hacking have been identified.
It comes as 10 people accused of sexist cyber-harassment against the First Lady are set to go on trial in Paris today.
The defendants are eight men and two women all between the ages of 41 to 60. If convicted they face up to two years in prison.
They have been accused of making numerous malicious comments about the First Lady’s gender and sexuality.
Brigitte Macron has been given a male name on her personal tax record by a group of hackers
The First Lady of France has long been the subject of rumours questioning her gender
The trial over false claims that Mrs Macron was born a male comes months after she and her husband President Emmanuel Macron filed a defamation lawsuit in the US against American right-wing influencer Candace Owens.
Owens was accused by the couple of propagating ‘outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions’ that fuelled a lie-filled ‘campaign of global humiliation’ and ‘relentless bullying’ after she promoted claims that Mrs Macron was born a man.
The political commentator, who has millions of followers on social media, has publicly repeated the claims on her channels.
The allegation originated online and found an audience through French bloggers Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey in a 2021 YouTube video.
Owens took to social media in March 2024 to announce she was ‘waging her entire professional reputation’ on the theory that the French first lady was born Jean-Michel Trogneux – the actual name of her older brother – before transitioning aged 30.
Those allegations were seized upon after far-right blogger and Faits et Documents contributor Natacha Rey, and clairvoyant Amandine Roy, covered them in a YouTube interview that went viral.
The Macrons won their initial defamation case against Roy and Rey in 2024, but the ruling was overturned on appeal this year on freedom of expression grounds. The Macrons are also appealing that decision.
Owens said she based her allegations on what she called a ‘thorough investigation’ by French blogger Natacha Rey.
Mrs Macron and her husband President Emmanuel Macron filed a defamation lawsuit in the US in July against American right-wing influencer Candace Owens after she promoted claims that Mrs Macron was born a man
The Macrons in turn filed a 218-page lawsuit in Delaware on July 23, seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.
Mr and Ms Macron said in a statement at the time: ‘Because Ms Owens systematically reaffirmed these falsehoods in response to each of our attorneys’ repeated requests for a retraction, we ultimately concluded that referring the matter to a court of law was the only remaining avenue for remedy.
‘Ms Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety. We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused.
‘It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all.’
