Tiphaine Auzière. Credit line: Julien Sarkissian / Bestimage / Profimedia
Brigitte Macron's daughter told a Paris court that her mother's internet harassment had negatively affected her health and living conditions.
Tiphaine Auzière, 41, is the stepdaughter of French President Emmanuel Macron.
She testified on the second and final day of the trial of 10 people accused of spreading unsubstantiated claims about Brigitte Macron's gender and sexuality.
Brigitte Macron, 72, has long been the target of conspiracy theories claiming she is a transgender woman.
“It's important to be here today to express the pain my mother went through. I wanted to tell what her life was like from the moment she started being the target of these attacks,” Ms Auzière said.
She added that she had noticed a change and “deterioration” in her mother's health since claims about her gender and sexuality began to circulate.
Ms Macron “had to be careful about her clothing choices, her posture… She knows perfectly well that her image will be used to support these theories,” Ms Auzière said.
She said not a day went by without the allegations being somehow reported to her mother — “even by someone who means well and understands her.”
Although her mother had “learned to live with it”, Ms Auzière said, she suffered the repercussions for her grandchildren, who were taunted at school.
Prosecutors are seeking suspended prison terms of three to 12 months for the accused and fines of up to 8,000 euros ($9,300).
The defendants are aged between 41 and 65. One of them – a man named Aurélien Poirson-Atlan – is accused of telling his 200,000 online followers that Ms Macron was a transgender woman and that the 24-year age difference between her and Emmanuel Macron amounted to “pedophilia”.
Mr Poirson-Atlan told the court on Tuesday he was a “satirist” who only wanted to present “a different point of view than the media”.
Two other defendants – self-styled independent journalist Natacha Rey and clairvoyant Amandine Roy – were already found guilty of libel last year for claiming that the French first lady never existed and that her brother had changed gender and started using her name. Later, they were acquitted by an appeals court.
Other defendants also said they were exercising their “freedom of speech.” One of them asked President Macron to publish photos of pregnant Brigitte Macron to prove that she is a biological woman.
The Macrons have already said they will present such evidence in court proceedings against the far-right American influencer Candace Owens.
Owens has repeatedly promoted his view that Brigitte Macron is a man, and in March 2024 he said he would put his “entire professional reputation” on the line over the allegation.
Earlier this year, the Macrons' lawyer in the case, Tom Clare, told the BBC that the couple would present photographic and scientific evidence to a US court to prove that Mrs Macron is a woman.
“It's incredibly upsetting to think that you have to submit, to present this kind of evidence,” he said.
Brigitte Macron first met her current husband when she was a teacher at his high school.
The couple married in 2007, when Mr Macron was 29 and Mrs Macron 54.
