The Paris verdict was handed down Monday in the highly publicised trial linked to rumours about the gender identity of Brigitte Macron, the wife of the French president. All ten defendants were found guilty of cyberbullying.
A total of eight of the ten defendants were given suspended sentences of four to eight months in prison for “publishing or relaying” comments in “malicious, degrading and insulting terms” about Brigitte Macron’s gender and “alleged paedophilia.”
One of the defendants was given a six-month prison sentence, the heaviest sentence imposed, due to his absence from the trial. Another defendant was not sentenced to prison, receiving only an awareness course and a fine, which his nine co-defendants were also sentenced to. All of them will have to take an awareness course on “respect for people in the digital space” and pay a joint fine of €10,000.
In a four-hour video posted in 2021 and never removed since, Delphine J., known as Amandine Roy, presenting herself as a medium, gave a demonstration aimed at proving that Brigitte Macron, née Trogneux, was a fictional character—in reality Jean-Michel Trogneux who had changed gender. Her work, in association with a journalist named Natacha Rey, had also been published in several issues of the investigative newspaper Faits et Documents. Since then, the rumour has grown considerably, even gaining international attention.
Amandine Rey was given a six-month suspended prison sentence.
The writer Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, alias Zoé Sagan on social media, whose account has since been suspended, was given an eight-month suspended sentence. On X, he had described the 24-year age gap between Mr. and Mrs. Macron as a “sexual crime” and “paedophilia condoned by the state.” During the trial, he denounced a “shocking state secret.”
Gallery owner Bertrand Scholler, prosecuted for the 2024 posting a photomontage of Brigitte Macron with a man’s torso, which became quite popular online, reacted angrily to his sentence: “This is an act of tyranny! In France, we no longer have the right to think,” he said after the verdict.
The seven other people convicted are considered to be just “followers,” which explains why they received more lenient sentences.
Journalist Natacha Rey was prosecuted in another trial related to the same case but was not charged with cyberbullying. Along with Delphine J., Rey was already tried a few months ago following a lawsuit initiated by Brigitte Macron for defamation. The two women were initially found guilty, then cleared on appeal. The wife of the president has since appealed to the Court of Cassation, and the final judgement has not yet been handed down.
It should be noted that the various trials held in connection with the ‘Jean-Michel affair’ have all centred on related charges, but no judgement has yet been handed down on the merits of the case, namely the veracity or otherwise of the investigation conducted on Brigitte Macron.
Another defamation case is also pending in the United States against influencer Candace Owens, who reproduced the work of Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey.
