Brigitte Macron’s daughter has told a court in Paris that sexist cyber-bullying negatively affected her mother’s health and living conditions.
Tiphaine Auzière, 41, is the step-daughter of French President Emmanuel Macron.
She took the stand on the second and final day of the trial of 10 people accused of spreading unsubstantiated claims over Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality.
Mrs Macron, 72, has long been the target of conspiracy theories which allege she is a transgender woman.
“It is important to be here today to express the harm my mother has faced. I wanted to give an account of what her life has been like since the moment she started being targeted by these attacks,” Ms Auzière said.
She added she had noticed a change and a “deterioration” in her mother’s health since claims around her gender and sexuality began swirling.
Mrs Macron “has had to be careful about her choices of outfits, of posture… She knows perfectly well that her image will be used to back these theories,” Ms Auzière said.
She said that not a day went by that the claims were not somehow reported to her mother – “even by someone who means well and feels for her”.
While her mother had “learned to live with it”, Ms Auzière said, she suffered from the repercussions on her grandchildren who were taunted at school.
“She hasn’t been elected, she hasn’t asked anything of anyone, and she comes under attack.”
Prosecutors are seeking suspended prison terms of three months to 12 months for the accused, and fines of up to €8,000 ($9,300).
Among the defendants – all aged 41 to 65 – are an elected official, a gallery owner and a teacher.
One – a man named Aurélien Poirson-Atlan – is accused of telling his 200,000 online followers that Mrs Macron is a transgender woman and that the 24-year age gap between her and Emmanuel Macron amounts to “state-sanctioned paedophilia”.
Mr Poirson-Atlan told the court on Tuesday that he was a “satirist” who had just wished to put forward “a point of view different to that of the mainstream media”.
Two other defendants – self-styled independent journalist Natacha Rey and internet fortune-teller Amandine Roy – were already found guilty of slander last year for claiming that France’s first lady had never existed, and that her brother had changed gender and started using her name. They were later acquitted by a court of appeals.
Other defendants also said they had employed their “freedom of expression”. One requested the Macrons publish photos of Brigitte Macron pregnant to prove she is a biological woman.
The Macrons have already said they will present such evidence in court proceedings against US right-wing influencer Candace Owens.
Owens has repeatedly promoted her view that Brigitte Macron is a man and in March 2024, she claimed she would stake her “entire professional reputation” on the allegation.
Earlier this year the Macrons’ lawyer in the case, Tom Clare, told the BBC the couple would present photographic and scientific evidence to a US court to prove Mrs Macron is a woman.
“It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself, to put this type of proof forward,” he said.
Mrs Macron first met her now-husband when she was a teacher at his secondary school.
The couple ended up marrying in 2007, when Mr Macron was 29 and Mrs Macron was 54.