France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, has escalated her legal battle to France’s highest appeals court after a lower court overturned the convictions of two women accused of spreading false claims about her gender, her lawyer said on Monday.
The Paris appeals court last Thursday dismissed the previous ruling against Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey, who had claimed in a 2021 YouTube video that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born male and formerly known as Jean-Michel Trogneux — the name of her actual brother.
Macron initially filed a defamation suit after the video — in which Roy, a self-described medium, interviewed Rey, who presented herself as an independent journalist — went viral, especially among conspiracy theorists. The discussion lasted four hours and alleged a cover-up involving the French state.
A lower court in September 2023 had ordered both women to pay €8,000 in damages to Brigitte Macron and €5,000 to her brother.
Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, confirmed that both she and her brother are now appealing to the Court of Cassation in pursuit of justice.
