Haunted by a Lie: Brigitte Macron and the Endless Life of a Conspiracist Hoax

This week in Paris, ten people went on trial for cyber-bullying Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, by spreading a conspiracy theory as grotesque as it was absurd. For the most serious offenses, prosecutors sought suspended sentences ranging from three to twelve months.

Yet Brigitte Macron herself has, in a sense, been handed a life sentence — because who can doubt that she will be haunted by this lie until the end of her days? This hoax, concocted from scratch to smear her and, through her, to wound her husband, the president, will never leave her — or her family — in peace. During the trial, her daughter, lawyer Tiphaine Auzière, testified that even the First Lady’s grandchildren have been targeted by taunts in their school playground, proof of the enduring cruelty of this smear campaign.

Most of the defendants invoked their “right to satire,” shamelessly appealing to the “Charlie spirit” — as if Charlie Hebdo ever bullied private citizens with deliberate falsehoods. But to claim satire is, in effect, to admit they never believed the idiotic story they peddled relentlessly. It is to acknowledge that the real joke was on us — and one suspects that those who believed them will never hold it against them.

Harassment is always a rigged game: heads I win, tails you lose. For victims, there are only bad choices.

Filing a complaint risks amplifying the rumor by giving it new oxygen — and can even backfire in court, offering defamers a legal victory. There is never any certainty that justice will protect you. Proof came last July, when Brigitte Macron lost her appeal in the defamation case against Amandine Roy, a self-styled psychic and “medium,” and Natacha Rey, the one who first popularized the hoax claiming the First Lady is secretly a man. The court agreed their statements were defamatory — yet still judged they had acted “in good faith”!

The same fabrication later crossed the Atlantic, amplified by American far-right influencer Candace Owens, who repackaged and monetized the lie for millions of followers while railing against “globalist elites.” The Macrons have since filed a separate defamation lawsuit against her in Paris — a reminder that the law applies to everyone, regardless of borders, and that even the leaders of democracies have the same right as any citizen to protect themselves and their families from defamation and harassment.

The Brigitte Macron affair is a perfect illustration of smoke without fire — a delusion invented and amplified on social networks until it took on the appearance of truth. Over time, it acquired its own “evidence”: doctored photos, fabricated documents, and false testimonies, even obscene images purporting to show the First Lady’s “male” anatomy. At once misogynistic and transphobic, this fantasy denies women’s dignity while turning the mere idea of being transgender into a slur — a new weapon in the conspiracist arsenal.

Owens’ participation in this campaign reveals the mutation of conspiracy activism into a globalized industry of digital hate — one that fuses transphobia, misogyny, antisemitism and homophobia, then profits handsomely from the outrage it produces.

The latest cases signal a necessary evolution. Debunking alone no longer suffices. The authors and profiteers of defamation must be held personally accountable. Social-media platforms must be required to delist and demote defamatory content, instead of serving as amplifiers. And the media must resist the temptation to recycle these insanities in pursuit of traffic. Our democracies will not endure if lies become a form of impunity.

Unfortunately, however, from a coldly strategic point of view, conspiracy theorists would be foolish to renounce such a weapon. Cyber-harassment works — and that is precisely what this week’s Paris trial exposes.