Brigitte Macron’s daughter has slammed the ‘grotesque’ right-wing conspiracy theorists who claimed her mother was born a man and praised Kate Middleton for taking on the trolls.
40-year-old French lawyer Tiphaine Auziere, who was just 10 when she found out that her teacher mother was seeing a pupil 25 years younger than her, has come to her mother’s defence to say she was right to use the law to fight the online misinformation about her.
Last year, Ms Macron won a libel case against a freelance journalist who made the initial claim that she was not born a woman, but not before the vicious and unfounded rumour went viral on social media.
‘You have the really clear victims like my mother and the Princess of Wales, and then you have others who have been whipped up and muddled by the misinformation,’
said Ms Auziere in an interview with the Telegraph.
Brigitte Macron (R), wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, and her daughter Tiphaine Auziere (L) pose as they leave a polling station in 2017.
Ms Auziere in 2022. She has defended her mother saying she was right to use the law to fight the online misinformation about her
President Macron with his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, in Paris on February 22, 2017
Ms Auziere commended Kate over how she had handled the intense pressure from the public to reveal the reason she had to have surgery in January.
‘I was so incredibly touched by Kate’s video. I found it so moving. There she is, asking people to leave her alone so that she can get on with her medical treatment in peace.
‘But it really touched me. I thought she was so brave to do that. Because in the end she was forced to do it; there was so much pressure.
‘This, despite her having so many more important things to think about, yet everything was polluted with fake news, each piece of misinformation worse than the one before.’
Ms Auziere was proud that her mother had taken the false claim made by far-Right magazine Faits et Documents (Facts & Documents) to court, arguing that it is important for people to be able to have legal support in these situations.
‘It’s the same kind of thing we went through, and 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.’
Kate Middleton was forced to release an online video to tell the world she was fighting cancer, after immense speculation and lies spread online
Ms Auziere commended Kate over how she had handled the intense pressure from the public to reveal the reason she had to have surgery in January
French President’s wife (L) Brigitte Macron and France’s Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory Patricia Miralles attend a visit to the Invalides’ national Insitution on February 29
Those spreading the transgender rumours were Amandine Roy, a 52-year-old clairvoyant, and Natacha Rey, 48, who styled herself as a freelance journalist.
A judge sitting at Lisieux, in Normandy, originally fined the two women the equivalent of £1700 each, after finding them both guilty of libel.
But, following appeals, Roy was fined the equivalent of just £850, and Rey had £1300 of her £1700 fine suspended, meaning she had to pay just £400.
In a previous interview Ms Auziere said she was also wounded at claims on social media that Brigitte was born male: ‘I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about my mother being a man.’
French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out for the first time against claims that his wife was born a man – saying the rumours were ‘false and fabricated’.
Mr Macron, 47, expressed his anger and frustration about continual speculation about Brigitte Macron, 70, whom he married in 2007.
‘The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios,’ said Mr Macron. ‘People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.’
The president was speaking on International Women’s Day on Friday, after inscribing the guaranteed right to abortion into France’s constitution.