Brigitte Macron ‘born a man'? How a YouTube blogger and a clairvoyant's claim shook Emmanuel Macron's wife
Jean-Michel Trogneux
, transitioned to female, and hid it all from the public.
It wasn't just idle gossip either. They pointed to Brigitte's real brother, who is genuinely named Jean-Michel Trogneux, to lend their theory some weight. Then came a side claim that her first husband, André-Louis Auzière, never really existed before his death in 2020. When these theories hit the internet, they went viral in the conspiracy corners.
Brigitte Macron didn't let it slide. She took them to court in January 2022, suing for defamation.
First defeat, then a shocking turn
A lower court in September 2023 found both women guilty. They were ordered to pay €8,000 to Brigitte Macron and €5,000 to her brother for dragging his name into it. But Roy and Rey didn't back down. They insisted they'd faced 'intimidation by the authorities' who were 'ultra protected' and hell-bent on burying what they framed as a 'state secret'.
Last week, the
Paris Appeals Court
sided with them. It ruled they acted in 'good faith' — their allegations were not defamatory but an expression of belief, however bizarre. So they walked away without paying a cent. The court said the 18 disputed statements in the YouTube video didn't legally add up to defamation.
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Brigitte Marcon fights on
Brigitte Macron, now 72, says she's 'devastated'. Her lawyers have confirmed she'll appeal the decision to France's Cassation Court. President Emmanuel Macron has blasted the rumour as 'false information' that 'disturbs intimacy'. Tiphaine Auzière, Brigitte's daughter, called it 'grotesque harassment'.
This isn't just fringe chatter either. Earlier this year, American commentator Candace Owens picked up the torch with a video titled Becoming Brigitte: An Introduction. She declared, 'When I said that I would stake my entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the current First Lady of France, was born a man, there were many people, of course, who did not believe me because that just sounds crazy.'
Owens went further, saying, 'More specifically, Brigitte brought the case in regards to a 4-hour YouTube video broadcast… alleging that there were 18 instances of defamation… Brigitte was never attacking the claim that she was born a man. She was being super petty and trying to get them on a technicality of defamation for misspeaking.'
She doubled down, claiming 'It was never defamation. It was a witch hunt. Legally speaking, the only proof Brigitte Macron is a woman is her word that she is. There is tons of proof however, that she lived as a man before 'becoming Brigitte'.'
Fuel for conspiracies
This legal twist has emboldened the rumour mill. Social media posts keep popping up. One user on X (Twitter) wrote, 'Brigitte Macron (born Jean Michel Trogneux) isn't just a man, but the Father of President Macron of France.' Another added, 'Brigitte Macron, The French President Emmanuel Macron's Wife is allegedly a MAN and it's now going Mainstream in France.'
A controversial book by journalist Xavier Poussard, Becoming Brigitte, has become fresh tinder for these stories too.
So what does all this mean for the public? It's a stark reminder of how sticky conspiracy theories can be when they tap into scandal and suspicion. Despite clear denials, solid evidence, and repeated legal action, the rumour won't die. Instead, the court's latest ruling has given oxygen to claims that were already thriving in the darker corners of the web.
Meanwhile, Brigitte Macron continues to stand her ground — rarely commenting in public but defending her name through the courts. And if this latest twist is any clue, the First Lady's legal battle is far from over. The next stop: France's highest court. Whether it puts this story to bed or fans the flames even more remains to be seen.
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Indian Express
11 minutes ago
- Indian Express
How Russia reins in internet by blocking websites, isolating it from rest of world
YouTube videos that won't load. A visit to a popular independent media website that produces only a blank page. Cellphone internet connections that are down for hours or days. Going online in Russia can be frustrating, complicated and even dangerous. It's not a network glitch but a deliberate, multipronged and long-term effort by authorities to bring the internet under the Kremlin's full control. Authorities adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that won't comply. Technology has been perfected to monitor and manipulate online traffic. While it's still possible to circumvent restrictions by using virtual private network apps, those are routinely blocked, too. Authorities further restricted internet access this summer with widespread shutdowns of cellphone internet connections and adopting a law punishing users for searching for content they deem illicit. They also are threatening to go after the popular WhatsApp platform while rolling out a new 'national' messenger that's widely expected to be heavily monitored. President Vladimir Putin urged the government to 'stifle' foreign internet services and ordered officials to assemble a list of platforms from 'unfriendly' states that should be restricted. Experts and rights advocates told The Associated Press that the scale and effectiveness of the restrictions are alarming. Authorities seem more adept at it now, compared with previous, largely futile efforts to restrict online activities, and they're edging closer to isolating the internet in Russia. Human Rights Watch researcher Anastasiia Kruope describes Moscow's approach to reining in the internet as 'death by a thousand cuts.' 'Bit by bit, you're trying to come to a point where everything is controlled.' Censorship after 2011-12 protests Kremlin efforts to control what Russians do, read or say online dates to 2011-12, when the internet was used to challenge authority. Independent media outlets bloomed, and anti-government demonstrations that were coordinated online erupted after disputed parliamentary elections and Putin's decision to run again for president. Russia began adopting regulations tightening internet controls. Some blocked websites; others required providers to store call records and messages, sharing it with security services if needed, and install equipment allowing authorities to control and cut off traffic. Companies like Google or Facebook were pressured to store user data on Russian servers, to no avail, and plans were announced for a 'sovereign internet' that could be cut off from the rest of the world. Russia's popular Facebook-like social media platform VK, founded by Pavel Durov long before he launched the Telegram messenger, came under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018-20 but failed. Prosecutions for social media posts and comments became common, showing that authorities were closely watching the online space. Still, experts had dismissed Kremlin efforts to rein in the internet as futile, arguing Russia was far from building something akin to China's 'Great Firewall,' which Beijing uses to block foreign websites. Ukraine invasion triggers crackdown After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government blocked major social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Signal and a few other messaging apps. VPNs also were targeted, making it harder to reach restricted websites. YouTube access was disrupted last summer in what experts called deliberate throttling by authorities. The Kremlin blamed YouTube owner Google for not maintaining its hardware in Russia. The platform has been wildly popular in Russia, both for entertainment and for voices critical of the Kremlin, like the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider, said in June that websites using its services were being throttled in Russia. Independent news site Mediazona reported that several other popular Western hosting providers also are being inhibited. Cyber lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan, founder of Russian internet freedom group Roskomsvoboda, said authorities have been trying to push businesses to migrate to Russian hosting providers that can be controlled. He estimates about half of all Russian websites are powered by foreign hosting and infrastructure providers, many offering better quality and price than domestic equivalents. A 'huge number' of global websites and platforms use those providers, he said, so cutting them off means those websites 'automatically become inaccessible' in Russia too. Another concerning trend is the consolidation of Russia's internet providers and companies that manage IP addresses, according to a July 30 Human Rights Watch report. Last year, authorities raised the cost of obtaining an internet provider license from 7,500 rubles (about USD 90) to 1 million rubles (over USD 12,300), and state data shows that more than half of all IP addresses in Russia are managed by seven large companies, with Rostelecom, Russia's state telephone and internet giant, accounting for 25 per cent. The Kremlin is striving 'to control the internet space in Russia, and to censor things, to manipulate the traffic,' said HRW's Kruope. Criminalising extremist' searches A new Russian law criminalised online searches for broadly defined 'extremist' materials. That could include LGBTQ+ content, opposition groups, some songs by performers critical of the Kremlin — and Navalny's memoir, which was designated as extremist last week. Right advocates say it's a step toward punishing consumers — not just providers — like in Belarus, where people are routinely fined or jailed for reading or following certain independent media outlets. Stanislav Seleznev, cyber security expert and lawyer with the Net Freedom rights group, doesn't expect ubiquitous prosecutions, since tracking individual online searches in a country of 146 million remains a tall order. But even a limited number of cases could scare many from restricted content, he said. Another major step could be blocking WhatsApp, which monitoring service Mediascope said had over 97 million monthly users in April. WhatsApp 'should prepare to leave the Russian market,' said lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, and a new 'national' messenger, MAX, developed by social media company VK, would take its place. Telegram, another popular messenger, probably won't be restricted, he said. MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported. Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Anastasia Zhyrmont of the Access Now internet freedom group said both Telegram and WhatsApp were disrupted in Russia in July in what could be a test of how potential blockages would affect internet infrastructure. It wouldn't be uncommon. In recent years, authorities regularly tested cutting off the internet from the rest of the world, sometimes resulting in outages in some regions. Darbinyan believes the only way to make people use MAX is to 'shut down, stifle' every Western alternative. 'But again, habits … do not change in a year or two. And these habits acquired over decades, when the internet was fast and free,' he said. Government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor uses more sophisticated methods, analyzing all web traffic and identifying what it can block or choke off, Darbinyan said. It's been helped by 'years of perfecting the technology, years of taking over and understanding the architecture of the internet and the players,' as well as Western sanctions and companies leaving the Russian market since 2022, said Kruope of Human Rights Watch. Russia is 'not there yet' in isolating its internet from the rest of the world, Darbinyan said, but Kremlin efforts are 'bringing it closer.
NDTV
11 minutes ago
- NDTV
Opinion: Moving Nuclear Submarines Isn't Something To Announce On Social Media
Over the last week, two political leaders have exchanged barbs underlining the powerful nuclear arsenals of their respective nations. It was not just a pointless demonstration of bravado - it also showed that careless words and vague military threats can move the world closer to a disastrous conflict. The first to lash out was Dimitry Medvedev, a former president and prime minister of Russia, who now serves as deputy chair of President Vladimir Putin's security council. In a social media post on July 28, he said a US ultimatum for Moscow to come to the negotiating table over Ukraine was a "threat and a step towards war." Later, he alluded to Russia's "dead hand" nuclear launch system, which automatically fires a nuclear strike if the nation is attacked with such weapons. President Donald Trump responded to Medvedev's comments by saying he had ordered two nuclear submarines "to be positioned in the appropriate regions." He concluded by saying, correctly, that "words are very important and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances." (On Monday, a Kremlin spokesman warned against "nuclear rhetoric.") Between them, the US and Russia have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons. How dangerous is this war of words between the Kremlin and the White House? And what is the significance of Trump claiming to have moved nuclear submarines to new stations? I'm not a submariner - or a "bubblehead," as they are known (more-or-less affectionately) in the Navy. But I've commanded them in combat as a commodore and a rear admiral, directed the launch of their conventional Tomahawk missiles at terrorist targets in Africa and Asia, and sailed in them from time to time. I like to say these formidable warships are the apex predators of the ocean. And their locations are always kept secret. As an anti-submarine-warfare officer for three years on a destroyer early in my career, I hunted both Soviet and Chinese subs and, in exercises, American boats. ("Boats" is the colloquial term for submarines, whereas surface combatants are "ships.") We like to think of our destroyers as the greyhounds of the sea, and lethal to submarines; but truth be told, more often than not we ended up the target rather than the hunter in those drills against US boats. The US operates three types of nuclear-powered submarines, each posing a different level of threat to Russia. It is unclear which of the three types Trump claimed to have moved around; all US nuclear subs are capable of clandestine operations throughout the world's oceans. First, and by far the deadliest, are huge ballistic-missile boats: Ohio class SSBNs, which displace 20,000 tons when fully submerged. The Navy has 14 of these killer whales, each capable of carrying 24 Trident II nuclear-tipped missiles with ranges exceeding 4,000 miles. The missiles are in vertical tubes at the center of the boat, and the crew of 150 officers and enlisted men and women call that part of the warship "Sherwood Forest" - a stand of lethal tree trunks. While more than half the Ohio class are usually on patrol, it seems unlikely that Trump would have ordered changes to their movements given the extraordinary range of their missiles. The second big group of nuclear-powered submarines is the attack boats, or SSNs. The US currently operates three classes - Los Angeles, Seawolf and Virginia - totaling just over 50 warships. These are multi-mission platforms: they can hunt enemy submarines; launch long-range Tomahawk missiles at land targets with pinpoint accuracy; gather intelligence covertly; and sink enemy military and civilian surface ships. The three classes vary in size from 7,000 to 9,000 tons and their weapons and sensors vary - but all are deadly and very difficult to find through acoustic surveillance. I was glad to have two of them loosely assigned to my strike group in the early 2000s. Finally, four Ohio-class behemoths have been converted to carry more than 150 Tomahawk land-attack missiles in the tubes that formerly held ballistic missiles. These are favored by combatant commanders because of the big load of missiles, which constitute a strike group's main battery. Since the Tomahawk's range is about 1,500 miles, these would probably be the boats Trump moved, presumably closer to Russia. He may have designated the commander of US European Command, my old position, as the operational commander. These missiles could hold at risk Russian command-and-control nodes, supply routes, and military targets. That said, I've met Medvedev, and he is not a serious player in Putin's universe despite his political resume. Trump should ignore his erratic commentary and focus on putting pressure directly on the Russian economy. For that, the best weapons are not "haze grey and underway," as we say of the subs. They are economic tools, especially secondary sanctions applied to Russian oil customers, and the confiscation of Russian funds frozen in Western banks. As tempting as it is to move nuclear submarines around, the means to bring Putin to the table aren't America's killers of the deep.
The Print
25 minutes ago
- The Print
‘Unjustified & unreasonable': India calls out US, EU over double standards on Russia trade
'India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict. In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability,' Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement. Trump's latest threat was 'unjustified and unreasonable', India said, adding that it 'will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.' New Delhi: India has called out the double standards of the US and the European Union (EU), following President Donald Trump's threat to raise tariffs due to New Delhi's continuing purchase of Russian oil. 'In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.' Jaiswal's response comes after Trump's latest outburst on his social media platform Truth Social asserting that India is 'not only buying massive amounts of Russian oil' but selling the refined products on the open market for 'big profits.' Trump added: 'They [India] do not care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine. Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA.' This is not the first time that Trump has threatened the imposition of additional penalties on India for the purchase of Russian oil. The American President had earlier promised a 25 percent tariff on India along with penalties that are till date unspecified. The 25 percent tariff rate is set to come into effect on 7 August. The US President has long railed against India's purchase of Russian oil, and has been pushing India to purchase more energy from the US. However, while New Delhi is willing to entertain the idea, it has maintained that it will continue to purchase at the best available price on the global market. 'India's imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer,' Jaiswal said, pointing out that for New Delhi such purchases are a 'vital national compulsion.' The spokesperson further called out the duplicitous nature of both the US and the EU for continuing to trade with Russia that are not as important to their economies as the purchase of oil is for India. Also Read: Hours after slapping tariffs on India, Trump declares deal with Pakistan to develop oil reserves EU/US trade with Russia The EU in 2024 had a bilateral trade in goods worth EUR 67.5 billion with Russia in addition to an estimated EUR 17.2 billion in services, the MEA pointed out. Further, Jaiswal highlighted that the trade between the EU and Russia was not just focussed on energy, but also on mining products, fertilisers, iron and steel and machinery products. The EU last month unveiled its 18th sanctions package that took aim at a refinery in India that is partly owned by Rosneft, a Russian energy company. The latest EU sanctions also restricted the import of refined oil products from third countries based on Russian crude. Last year India exported roughly $16 billion worth of petroleum products to Europe as a whole, while around $13 billion was exported to the Netherlands in particular. India has become the world's second largest importer of Russian oil, importing roughly $56 billion worth of crude in the last financial year, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia was not a top source of crude for India. However, given the imposition of the G7 price cap after Moscow started the current open conflict with Ukraine, the price of Russian oil fell below $60 a barrel. This gave India an opportunity to import cheap crude from Russia. While in the early days, both the US and the EU applied pressure on India to stop its Russian purchases, the previous American administration led by President Joseph Biden eased off towards the end of his term. Trump has in recent weeks pivoted to threatening Russia's energy sales as his attempts to work for a ceasefire continued to flounder. The American President promised to end the war within 24 hours of assuming the presidency while on the campaign trail last year. However, almost eight months into his tenure, the war has continued to rage, while Russia has upped the intensity of its strikes aimed at Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. The American president in the early days attempted to pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire, and almost succeeded when both Presidents Vladimir V. Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had agreed to a partial ceasefire. However, within days the negotiations fell through. Trump's early attempts to pressure Zelenskyy led to the public shouting match between the two at the White House earlier in the year. Senator Lindsey Graham announced his intention to introduce a bill that would allow Trump to impose up to 500 percent of tariffs on countries continuing to purchase Russian oil linking the energy purchases to funding Moscow's war machine. However, Jaiswal pointed out that the US continues to maintain trade ties with Russia. The US imports 'uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers as well as chemicals,' he said. Officials from Trump's administration, including Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, have criticised India's continued purchase of Russian defence platforms, and called on New Delhi to purchase more American military equipment. Trump had called India and Russia 'dead economies' last week in another outburst on Truth Social. (Edited by Tony Rai) Also Read: Trump announces 25% tariffs for India, will impose additional penalties for purchase of Russian oil
