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Brigitte Macron on the steps of the Élysée Palace when the Emir of Qatar was recently received in France.
Richard Werly
This time it’s too much. Emmanuel Macron (46) has finally answered all those who have been mocking his wife on the Internet for years by claiming – with videos and blatant lies as proof – that his wife Brigitte is transgender. To give a certain solemnity to his answer, the French President formulated it during the ceremony of incorporating voluntary abortion into the Constitution, after Parliament voted in favor of it at the Congress on Monday, March 4, at the Palace of Versailles.
“The worst thing there is is false information and made-up scenarios, with people who ultimately believe in it and who harass you, even in your private life,” commented Emmanuel Macron on this day, which was symbolic in two respects. Because he enshrined the right to abortion in France’s constitution. And because the ceremony took place on Friday, March 8th, International Women’s Day.
Brigitte Macron was Emmanuel’s teacher
Yes, too much is too much and the justice system must now do its job. Brigitte Macron has been the subject of numerous rumors since her husband was elected president in May 2017. First of all, due to the age difference between the two spouses (she is 70 years old, he is 46), who met when the head of state was a young student at the high school in Amiens where Brigitte Auzière taught, named after her first husband, in 2020 died at the age of 68.
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The wildest rumors have been fueled by people like Delphine Jégousse, a Normandy-based psychic and YouTuber whose videos purportedly explain the first lady of France’s sex change. Brigitte Macron as transgender: Social networks are full of these accusations, to which the French president has now responded. “We have to use the law and justice against this machismo,” he announced and called for a strengthening of digital public order in social networks. “A wonderful place to express the craziest things,” which he still sees as “without rules.”
The problem for Emmanuel Macron and his wife is that the justice system has partially stalled. In February 2022, Brigitte Macron filed a lawsuit twice against two women – including Delphine Jégousse – who were said to be behind the transphobic rumors about her. One for “violation of respect for private life and the right to one’s own image”. The second for “public defamation”. The first lawsuit was overturned by the Paris court on March 9, 2023 due to “poor presentation of the facts”. The second led to the conviction of the two accused women in the first instance in February 2023 and then on appeal in June 2023.
The president in the judicial arena
Among the most viral sequences on the Internet, denounced by the Macrons and used by the judiciary as evidence of “defamation”, was an interview distributed on the Internet in which the First Lady’s haters spoke about surgical procedures that Brigitte Macron allegedly underwent have. They claimed she was not the mother of her three children and gave personal information about her brother.
The President’s appearance this week as a guarantor of the independence of the judiciary illustrates the ongoing family offensive a month before Brigitte Macron’s birthday on April 13th. A few days ago, her daughter, the lawyer Tiphaine Auzière (40), published her first novel, “Assises,” in which she addresses the topic of domestic violence. The book is dedicated to her stepfather Emmanuel Macron, who is just a few years older than her: “To Emmanuel, who showed me that nothing is impossible.”
Tiphaine Auzière, word in defense
In the magazine Paris Match she defended the presidential couple and said about the private life of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron, who married on October 20, 2007 in the northern French seaside resort of Le Touquet, where the first lady has a family home: “I have a lot about human life Nature learned […] The attacks, the slander, the judgments. We weren’t in the age of social media yet, but we lived in a small town. Everyone knew everything.”
To date, the accusatory videos have not been deleted from the Internet and social networks. They are particularly viral on the TikTok network.