France First Lady Brigitte Macron ‘revealed’ as a man on tax records

France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, has reportedly been turned into a man on her official tax records after hackers gained access to her personal account.

According to her chief of staff, Tristan Bromet, the hackers changed her legal name to “Jean-Michel, known as Brigitte Macron”, a reference to the false online claim that she was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.

Bromet told French news channel BFMTV that Mrs Macron, 72, was “shocked” to discover the change. The matter has been reported to the authorities, and two suspects have been identified.

The attack comes just as 10 people, eight men and two women aged between 41 and 60 are set to go on trial in Paris for sexist cyber-harassment against the First Lady. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison.

The defendants are accused of spreading malicious and false claims about Mrs Macron’s gender and sexuality on social media.

The false narrative that Brigitte Macron was born a man has circulated online for years and gained new attention after American right-wing influencer Candace Owens repeated the claim in 2024.

Owens, who has millions of followers, said she was “waging her entire professional reputation” on the theory that the French First Lady was once her older brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, before allegedly transitioning at age 30.

The Macrons have called the claims “absurd” and filed a defamation lawsuit against Owens in the United States earlier this year, accusing her of spreading “outlandish and defamatory lies” that caused “global humiliation.”

The rumour originally surfaced in 2021 after French bloggers Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey released a viral YouTube video pushing the false story.

The couple had earlier won a defamation case against the bloggers in 2024, but the verdict was overturned this year on appeal on freedom of expression grounds. The Macrons are now appealing that decision.

The French government has condemned the hacking incident and ongoing online harassment, calling it “an attack on personal dignity and privacy.”