Paris: Information campaigns hidden in the last days targeting the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron misstep that he is a man born, adding concerns over fake internet news of less than four months.
Brigitte Macron, 68, intends to file a legal complaint to demand disinformation.
“He has decided to start the procedure, is in process,” said his lawyer Jean Ennochi, without providing further details.
False claims have grown in momentum on social media during the last days, mixing strong opposition against Macron Centrist with extreme right and transphobia ideologies.
Fake news about transphobic solutions that target leading political figures is very rare in France until now, but not a global new phenomenon.
The targeted woman in the past has included US former US Michelle Obama, US Vice President Kamala Harris and New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern.
But the eruption of attacks on Brigitte, came when her husband prepared to fight what was expected to be a tense battle to find the re-election in April.
Macron relations with his 24-year-old senior wife like always attracting strict media interest in France and outside.
This is not the first time Macron’s pair has been targeted by rumors that target gender or sexual orientation.
During the 2017 campaign when he won the office, Macron must deny the claim about the alleged homosexuality.
For several months, messages have multiplied on social networks that claim that Brigitte Macron, born like Brigitte Trogneux, is a transgender woman whose first name at birth is Jean-Michel.
False claims accused that the vast plot has been engineered to hide these changes in civil status.
Such claims seem to have been made on Facebook in March by users who call themselves “Natacha Rey”.
This “journalist” page clusts with conspiracy theory.
The spread of claims began in mid-October with the publication of articles about “Mystery Brigitte Macron” in “Facts and Documents”, a review founded in 1996 by a dark ultra-right writer.
Nearly two weeks after publication, the hashtag #Jeanmicheltrogneux appeared for the first time on Twitter on November 1.
The hashtag has so far produced Retweet 68,300 and more than 174,000 likes.