Tiphaine Auziere, Brigitte Macron's daugther, arrives to take the stand in the trial of ten people accused of sexist cyber-harassment of wife of the French President, in Paris on October 28, 2025. Ten people go on trial in Paris on October 27, 2025 for sexist cyber-harassment of Brigitte Macron, in the latest case sparked by unsubstantiated gender claims thrown at the wife of the French President for years by some in France and beyond. Photo / Stephane De Sakutin, AFP
Tiphaine Auziere, Brigitte Macron's daugther, arrives to take the stand in the trial of ten people accused of sexist cyber-harassment of wife of the French President, in Paris on October 28, 2025. Ten people go on trial in Paris on October 27, 2025 for sexist cyber-harassment of Brigitte Macron, in the latest case sparked by unsubstantiated gender claims thrown at the wife of the French President for years by some in France and beyond. Photo / Stephane De Sakutin, AFP
Brigitte Macron’s daughter has told a Paris court her mother can no longer ignore the “horrors that are being said” by cyber bullies who baselessly claim she was born a man.
Tiphaine Auzière, 41, said these had caused a “change and a deterioration” in her mother, France’s first lady, asshe testified in the second and final day of the trial of eight men and two women, aged 41 to 65.
They are accused of spreading “numerous malicious comments” online about Macron’s gender and sexuality and of describing the age gap with her 47-year-old husband Emmanuel, the French President, as “paedophilia”.
Brigitte with her daughter Laurence, who is the same age as Emmanuel Macron. Photo / WireImage via Getty Images
They face up to two years in prison if found guilty.
Macron, 72, told investigators the rumour had damaged her mental and physical wellbeing, and greatly impacted her and her family, especially her grandchildren, who were told their grandmother was a man.
She has not attended the trial but her lawyer had asked her daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, 41, to testify.
Brigitte Macron with her daughter Tiphaine Auzière in April. Photo / WireImage via Getty Images
To a packed Paris courthouse on Tuesday, Auzière, a writer and employment lawyer, said: “It was important to be here today to express the harm done. I wanted to talk about what her life has been like since she suffered this hatred”.
She added that she had noted a “change and a deterioration” in her mother’s condition since such unfounded claims about her gender and sexuality had spread online.
“She knows that her image can be taken and misused. She is constantly under attack. She cannot ignore all the horrors that are being said.”
Brigitte Macron ‘in constant state of alertness about appearance’
Auzière said the cyberbullying had left her mother in a “constant state of alertness” regarding her appearance.
“She is no longer at ease in any aspect of her life,” she told the court.
“She has to pay attention to what she wears, how she holds herself because she knows that her image can be distorted,” said Auziere, adding it had led to a “deterioration of her health”.
“It’s impossible for her to have a normal life without being reminded of the attacks she is subjected to.”
She asked the court not to underestimate “the anxiety this caused her, in terms of what her loved ones, especially her grandchildren”.
“This whirlwind is having a growing impact on her living conditions and health.”
Emmanuel Macron, President of France, with his wife Brigitte Macron. Photo / In Pictures via Getty Images
“This has repercussions on her children and grandchildren. They hear things at school such as, ‘Your grandmother is a man’. I don’t know how to make it stop,” she said.
“It’s something that affects her greatly,” she told the court.
The Macrons started criminal proceedings two years ago after there was no let-up in the torrent of claims that Macron, 72, had been born Jean-Michel Trogneux and underwent gender reassignment before taking part in a supposed conspiracy to seduce the future President, who is 24 years her junior.
In reality, Trogneux is Macron’s reclusive older brother.
Auzière said that the uncle in question was alive and well.
“I saw my uncle a few months ago, he’s in great shape.”
In an interview with The Telegraph last year, Auzière expressed disdain for conspiracy theories regarding her mother, saying: “I find those kinds of polemics grotesque, on the same level as being told we are all being governed by lizards”.
“So our response to that – or my mother’s response – was to file a legal complaint, and I trust the law to re-establish the truth there. The law does have to intervene in instances like that. On a national level, it needs to condemn that kind of behaviour, and beyond that, on a European level, we need to think about what kind of legal arsenal people should have at their disposal.”
The cyber-bullying trial comes just three months after Macron and her husband filed a defamation lawsuit in the United States against Candace Owens, a conservative podcaster, over similar claims.
Several of those on trial in Paris shared posts from the US influencer.
The defendants, who also include a town councillor, a teacher and an IT expert, have cast the trial as a bid by France’s ruling elite to stifle free speech.
Another defendant, a self-styled spiritual medium called Amandine Roy, said: “If there was real justice in France, these charges would never have existed”.
The trial is being closely watched across the Atlantic, where the Macrons are planning to offer “scientific” evidence and photos proving that the first lady is not transgender, according to their US lawyer.
Despite this, Owens fired off a tweet on Monday that read: “If it walks like a dude, talks like a dude, and is listed in the French tax registry as a dude, then it’s the First Dude of France”.
That was a reference to revelations on Sunday that Macron was given a male name on her personal tax record by a team of hackers.
