Transphobic rumors: justice cancels a procedure brought by Brigitte Macron
The Paris court on Wednesday canceled a procedure brought by First Lady Brigitte Macron, who had summoned in February 2022 two women who spread fake news onlines claiming she was a transgender woman.
In its decision, consulted by AFP, the court declared void the summons issued by Brigitte Macron for invasion of privacy and image rights, considering that the facts she denounced should have been qualified of public defamation.
Brigitte Macron, her brother, and the three children of the First Lady had assigned two women on February 15, 2022, one presenting herself as a “medium”, the other as an “independent journalist”. They asked the court to condemn these two women to pay them damages for having broadcast on the YouTube channel of the “medium”, on December 10, 2021, “a perfectly eccentric thesis” according to which Brigitte Macron, born Trogneux, would never have existed, but that his brother would have taken on this identity after changing sex.
Another public defamation lawsuit filed in January 2022
This false information, which had first circulated quietly, then had a greater echo and was also declined in more serious accusations of pedocrime brought against the First Lady. The plaintiffs considered themselves victims of a violation of the right to respect for private life, the four-hour interview broadcast on the Internet evoking surgeries that Brigitte Macron would have undergone, claiming that she would not be the mother of her three children, and giving personal information about his brother.
The summons also denounced infringements of image rights, various photographs of the plaintiffs, some of which “retouched, enlarged, colored” having been broadcast during this interview. In parallel with this civil procedure, Brigitte Macron brought a separate criminal action, with a complaint with a civil action for public defamation, filed on January 31, 2022. This procedure is still ongoing.
