Scandals are swarming around the wife of the French President
Despite previous denials, rumors that the wife of the French President Brigitte Macron was born a man continue to circulate widely. So where do these assumptions come from?
screenshot from video
The cute little girl with the pudding bowl hairstyle sitting on her mother's lap is Brigitte Trogneux. Her family are famous chocolatiers and pastry chefs in the Amiens region of northern France, where the prestigious Trogneux brand is as famous as, say, Thorntons in the UK, writes the Daily Mail.
But today the family — or rather, the child in the photograph has another, much greater claim to fame. She grew up to become Brigitte Macron, First Lady of France, wife of President Emmanuel Macron. Trogneux is her maiden name.
The black and white family portrait, which features her parents and siblings, was taken back in the 1950s. Could anyone, least of all Brigitte herself, imagine that more than half a century later this would be used by the far right, who claim that she… was born a man?
Last year, Brigitte won a libel case against freelance journalist who filed the original complaint, but the rumor never completely disappeared from some social media.
Most recently, Brigitte Tiefen Ozier's daughter, a lawyer, spoke about the consequences of the accusations.
In an interview earlier this month to coincide with the publication of a novel she wrote, Tiphaine, 40, told Paris Match: “I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks that my mother was a man. The confidence with which this is said and the credibility that is given to it is impressive. How can we counter disinformation on social networks?
Emmanuel Macron himself, speaking on International Women's Day last week, after the interview was published, expressed their anger and disappointment over the rumors and their impact on their personal lives.
“The worst thing is false information and fabricated scenarios,” he said. “People end up believing them and harassing you even in your intimacy.”
The claim initially went unnoticed when, in September 2021, a small far-right monthly called Faits et Documents (Facts and Documents) published the results of what it called a “three-year investigation” into Madame Macron, now 70. But when “correspondent” Natasha Rey, who works for the magazine and has a history of attacking the Macrons on social media, gave an interview on YouTube, the allegations went viral on the Internet. In the interview, she referred to an old family photo of Trogneux. The little girl sitting on her mother's lap, she claimed, was probably Natalie Farcy, who was orphaned when her older sister, Marivonne, died in a car accident with her husband Paul Farcy.
What about Brigitte? According to Rey, her birth name was Jean-Michel Trogneux—that's the boy in the plaid shirt in the photo—before «he» came out as transgender and had gender reassignment surgery in the early 1980s.
Almost immediately, the «story» began to spread widely on social media, notes the Daily Mail.
Websites associated with the far right, anti-vaxxers, the anti-government Yellow Vest movement and QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe that The United States is in the grip of devil-worshipping pedophiles who are spreading these claims.
The attack on Brigitte Macron has raised concerns about the «Trumpization» of political debate in France, with fake news being used to potentially influence voters, especially those on the far right, in the 2022 presidential election, which Macron went on to win, the Daily Mail states.
< p>The «trigger» for the Faits et Documents investigation — «The Brigitte Macron Mystery» — was «physique», according to Natasha Rey, who claimed that «experts», including plastic surgeons, «all agree with me that [Brigitte Macron] is trans.»
A 2021 YouGov poll found that a higher proportion of French and Americans are likely to believe in conspiracy theories (38 and 33 percent respectively) than their British counterparts (19 percent). .
Research by the Daily Mail suggests the boy in the plaid shirt may be her late older brother Jean-Claude. He was eight years older than Brigitte and became the manager of the family chocolate factory. Birth certificates in France, unlike in the UK, can only be obtained by the person whose name appears on the certificate, or a relative of that person. But Brigitte Macron's birth was reported in the Courrier Picard, a daily newspaper in the region of Picardy, whose capital is Amiens, her hometown, which states that she was born on April 13, 1953.
Mentioning Brigitte's three sisters and two brothers, the note announced: «Anne-Marie, Jean-Claude, Marivonne, Monique and Jean-Michel Trogneux are very happy to announce the birth of their little sister Brigitte.»
Magazine Faits et Documents reports that Elysee Palace officials «were unable to provide a photograph of Brigitte as a child.»
But the Daily Mail notes that there are numerous publications in reputable French publications, including about how seven-year-old Brigitte accepts her her first Holy Communion, not to mention her playing in the garden of her home, and dressed all in white on her wedding day to her first (late) husband, wealthy banker André-Louis Ozier.
Before she entered the Elysee Palace in 2017 as the wife of the youngest president in French history (she was 64, he was 39) Brigitte Macron, a former teacher, told her students: “You will hear remarks, true and false. I will never talk about them.”
However, in this case, Brigitte made an exception. Natasha Ray, 48, and Amandine Roy, a 52-year-old clairvoyant who appeared in a four-hour YouTube video in December 2021, were found guilty of libel and initially fined the equivalent of £1,700 each, but were reduced to £850 for Roy and £400 for Rey.
As the Daily Mail recalls, Brigitte first met Emmanuel Macron in September 1992. She was 39 years old, a married mother of three and a teacher at a French Catholic school in Amiens. He was 15 years old and in the same class as one of her daughters.
Throughout their 16-year marriage, Brigitte played a key role in Macron's political career, «somewhere between spin doctor and eminence,» according to one commentator.
But back in Amiens, their burgeoning friendship sparked outrage among locals years ago, the Daily Mail admits. Brigitte's family owned a patisserie on Place Notre-Dame in the city centre, which is now the flagship branch of the Trogneux chain, which has 12 other branches across Northern France. Their specialty was pasta, a sweet made from almonds, honey and egg whites. Her father was a pillar of respectability, regularly attending church and being a member of the Rotary Club.
Brigitte attended school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart; everyone had known her since childhood and watched her grow up as the youngest of six siblings. Her family called her a «happy little princess.» «It suited her perfectly — she was an adorable little girl who was always the center of attention,» said a family friend.
Another Amiens resident who knows the family well added: «She always received wonderful gifts, and she was treated like a princess. She was a real little girl who loved to dress up and wear her mother's jewelry. Her parents used to give her silver bracelets and things like that. When she passed her exams, they gave her a moped.»
At the age of 21, during a trip to the seaside town of Le Touquet, where her family had a holiday home, she met André-Louis Ozier, who was born in Cameroon, where his father worked as a diplomat. At 23, he was two years older than Brigitte, who was still a student, and had a successful career in banking. They were officially married at the local town hall in 1974; By the way, Emmanuel Macron's parents got married that same year.
By the time Brigitte turned 26, she had two girls and a boy.
What no one disputes is that Brigitte eventually received a teaching position at the Catholic school of the Lycée La Providence in Amiens. One of the subjects she taught was drama. The top student was Emmanuel Macron, whose mother and father were doctors.
Both sets of parents were alarmed by rumors that they were having an affair. The teenager Emmanuel was sent to Paris to complete his education. But their relationship lasted for 13 years, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Brigitte’s first husband was not seen publicly after she left him in 1996, and he died in December 2019 years, at the age of 66 years. Their son Sébastien Ozier, who at 48 is just two years older than his stepfather Macron, worked for the president as a statistician.
Their eldest daughter Laurence, 46, was in the same class as Emmanuel , at the school in Amiens, where Brigitte was a teacher.
The youngest daughter Tiphaine publicly supported their relationship. “If I have to give an idea of love, it’s Emmanuelle and mom,” she said in an interview in 2018.