The trial of 10 accused who sexually assaulted the President’s wife is underway

Ten men accused of sexist cyber-bullying of the French president’s wife, Brigitte Macron, are set to go on trial in Paris this week.

The defendants are accused of spreading unsubstantiated claims about her gender and sexuality, as well as making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between Brigitte and her husband Emmanuel Macron.

If convicted, the accused could face up to two years in prison.

Elected officials, gallery owners and teachers are among the ten people appearing in the docks on Monday and Tuesday, according to French media.

Two of them – self-styled freelance journalist Natacha Ray and internet astrologer Amandine Roy – were found guilty last year of blasphemy for claiming that France’s first lady never existed and that her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux had changed gender and started using her name.

But an appeals court later acquitted Ray and Roy on the grounds that their statements did not constitute defamation. Mrs Macron and her brother are appealing the decision.

A conspiracy theory centered around the idea that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has been circulating since her husband first won office in 2017.

Mrs Macron’s unsubstantiated claims about gender are gaining ground in the US, mainly promoted by right-wing influencer Candace Owens.

Macron filed a lawsuit against Owens last July, alleging that she “ignored all credible evidence falsifying her claim in favor of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven detractors”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Fame Under Fire podcast, Macron’s lawyer in the case, Tom Clare, said Brigitte Macron found the claims “incredibly disturbing” and that they were “distracting” from the French president.

“It’s incredibly disturbing to think that you have to go and subject yourself to put forward this kind of evidence,” he said.

Emmanuel Macron said the legal action against Owens was to “defend his honor” and that the influencer had “planted false information with the aim of harming, in the service of ideology and established connections with far-right leaders.”

Mrs Macron first met her now husband when she was a teacher at his secondary school.

The couple married in 2007, when Mr Macron was 29 and Mrs Macron was 54.