PARIS: The daughter of Brigitte Macron is to testify on Tuesday, the second day of the trial of 10 people accused of cyber-harassing the French first lady over unsubstantiated gender claims.
The trial comes after President Emmanuel Macron and his wife filed a defamation lawsuit in the United States at the end of July, in connection with a false claim amplified and repeated online that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth.
The claim has long targeted the presidential couple, alongside criticism of their quarter-century age gap.
The first lady, 72, has not attended the Paris trial of 10 defendants – eight men and two women, aged 41 to 65 – accused of harassing her online, who if convicted face up to two years in prison.
Brigitte Macron told investigators the rumor had greatly impacted her and her family, especially her grandchildren who were told their grandmother was a man.
The first lady’s lawyer had asked her daughter Tiphaine Auziere to testify.
The French first lady filed a complaint in August 2024 that led to an investigation into cyber-harassment and arrests in December 2024 and February 2025.
Among the defendants is Aurelien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a publicist known on social media as “Zoe Sagan” and often linked with conspiracy theory circles, who claimed on the sidelines of the trial on Monday that he was the one being harassed.
He was also to speak on Tuesday.
Jerome C. 55, told the court he was exercising his right to “freedom of speech” and “satire” when he posted or re-posted on social media.
Bertrand S., 56, had on Sunday said the trial was targeting his “freedom to think” faced with the “media deep state.”
Previous case
The defendants also include a woman already the subject of a libel complaint filed by Brigitte Macron in 2022: Delphine J., 51, a self-proclaimed spiritual medium who goes by the pseudonym Amandine Roy.
In 2021, she posted a four-hour interview with self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey on her YouTube channel, alleging Brigitte Macron, whose maiden name is Trogneux, had once been a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux, the name of her brother.
The two women were ordered to pay damages to Brigitte Macron and her brother in 2024 before the conviction was overturned on appeal. The first lady has since taken the case to the country’s highest appeals court.
Delphine J. refused to speak to the court on Monday, saying she had already spoken at length on the matter.
Emerging as early as Emmanuel Macron’s election in 2017, the claims have been amplified by far-right and conspiracy theorist circles in France, and in the United States, where transgender rights have become a hot-button issue at the heart of American culture wars.
The presidential couple filed a US defamation lawsuit in July against conservative podcaster Candace Owens, who produced a series titled “Becoming Brigitte,” claiming she was born a man.
The couple are planning to offer “scientific” evidence and photos proving that the first lady is not transgender, according to their US lawyer.
Several of those on trial in Paris shared posts from the US influencer.
Brigitte Macron’s daughter to testify at online harassment trial
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Brigitte Macron’s daughter to testify at online harassment trial
- Second day of the trial of 10 people accused of cyber-harassing the French first lady over unsubstantiated gender claims
Mystery of CIA’s lost nuclear device haunts Himalayan villagers 60 years on
- Plutonium-fueled spy system was meant to monitor China’s nuclear activity after 1964 atomic tests
- Porter who took part in Nanda Devi mission warned family of ‘danger buried in snow’
NEW DELHI: Porters who helped American intelligence officers carry a nuclear spy system up the precarious slopes of Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest peak, returned home with stories that sent shockwaves through nearby villages, leaving many in fear that still holds six decades later.
A CIA team, working with India’s Intelligence Bureau, planned to install the device in the remote part of the Himalayas to monitor China, but a blizzard forced them to abandon the system before reaching the summit.
When they returned, the device was gone.
The spy system contained a large quantity of highly radioactive plutonium-238 — roughly a third of the amount used in the atomic bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in the closing stages of the Second World War.
“The workers and porters who went with the CIA team in 1965 would tell the story of the nuclear device, and the villagers have been living in fear ever since,” said Narendra Rana from the Lata village near Nanda Devi’s peak.
His father, Dhan Singh Rana, was one of the porters who carried the device during the CIA’s mission in 1965.
“He told me there was a danger buried in the snow,” Rana said. “The villagers fear that as long as the device is buried in the snow, they are safe, but if it bursts, it will contaminate the air and water, and no one will be safe after that.”
During the Sino-Indian tensions in the 1960s, India cooperated with the US in surveillance after China conducted its first nuclear tests in 1964. The Nanda Devi mission was part of this cooperation and was classified for years. It only came under public scrutiny in 1978, when the story was broken by Outsider magazine.
The article caused an uproar in India, with lawmakers demanding the location of the nuclear device be revealed and calling for political accountability. The same year, then Prime Minister Morarji Desai set up a committee to assess whether nuclear material in the area near Nanda Devi could pollute the Ganges River, which originates there.
The Ganges is one of the world’s most crucial freshwater sources, with about 655 million people in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh depending on it for their essential needs.
The committee, chaired by prominent scientists, submitted its report a few months later, dismissing any cause for concerns, and establishing that even in the worst-case scenario of the device’s rupture, the river’s water would not be contaminated.
But for the villagers, the fear that the shell containing radioactive plutonium could break apart never goes away, and peace may only come once it is found.
Many believe the device, trapped within the glacier’s shifting ice, may have moved downhill over time.
Rana’s father told him that the device felt hot when it was carried, and he believed it might have melted its way into the glacier, remaining buried deep inside.
An imposing mass of rock and ice, Nanda Devi at 7,816 m is the second-highest mountain in India after Kangchenjunga.
When a glacier near the mountain burst in 2021, claiming over 200 lives, scientists explained that the disaster was due to global warming, but in nearby villages the incident was initially blamed on a nuclear explosion.
“They feared the device had burst. Those rescuing people were afraid they might die from radiation,” Rana said. “If any noise is heard, if any smoke appears in the sky, we start fearing a leak from the nuclear device.”
The latent fear surfaces whenever natural disasters strike or media coverage puts the missing device back in the spotlight. Most recently, a New York Times article on the CIA mission’s 60th anniversary reignited the unease.
“The apprehensions are genuine. After 1965, Americans came twice to search for the device. The villagers accompanied them, but it could not be found, which remains a concern for the local community,” said Atul Soti, an environmentalist in Joshimath, Uttarakhand, about 50 km from Nanda Devi.
“People are worried. They have repeatedly sought answers from the government, but no clear response has been provided so far. Periodically, the villagers voice their concerns, and they need a definitive government statement on this issue.”
Despite repeated queries whenever media attention arises, Indian officials have not released detailed updates since the Desai-appointed committee submitted its findings.
“The government should issue a white paper to address people’s concerns. The white paper will make it clear about the status of the device, and whether leakage from the device could pollute the Ganges River,” Soti told Arab News.
“The government should be clear. If the government is not reacting, then it further reinforces the fear.”
