‘I am not a man’.. France’s First Lady turns to judiciary
Brigitte Macron, France’s First Lady, seems to have had enough of conspiracy theorists and has decided to resort to the judiciary to confront those spreading rumors that she was born a man.
Outlandish claims made by two French internet influencers alleging that she was originally a man named Jean-Michel Tronieu who transitioned into a woman in the 1980s have sent shockwaves across France.
A defamation trial is set to begin in June, where the accused, right-wing activist and independent journalist Natasha Ray, asserts that prominent figures in the French presidency hide Brigitte’s true identity.
However, Emmanuel Macron angrily dismissed these rumors as “false and fabricated.”
The bizarre story began in December 2021 when Ray, 49, who describes herself as an independent journalist, and Amandine Roy, 53, who goes by the name of a clairvoyant, made a video on YouTube claiming that Brigitte was born as a baby named Jean-Michel Tronieu in 1953.
The conspiracy theory first surfaced in an article written by Ray in the far-right French magazine “Faits et Documents” after Macron‘s election as President of France in 2017.
The two women also claimed that Brigitte Macron’s first husband, André-Louis Auzière, did not exist and was a fictional character, despite their marriage certificate documenting their marriage between 1974 and 2006, during which they had three children, Tiphaine, 40, Laurence, 47, and Sébastien, 49. Auzière passed away in 2019 at the age of 68.
Last summer, a judge in Normandy found Ray and Roy guilty of defamation, leading both Brigitte and her brother to file separate lawsuits against the women. After appeals, Roy was fined just under $1000, while Ray had to pay around $500.
The rumors sparked mixed reactions in France, with musician Rose Leroux, residing in the French Riviera, affirming that Brigitte Macron is “a woman. A smart woman. A woman who is not afraid to defend herself and is not afraid to ask for help from anyone else, like her husband, who is the President of France. She is the ideal French woman.”
In contrast, the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo published a controversial caricature of Macron pointing to his wife, saying, “She is not transgender, she has always been a man!”
