Tiphaine Auziere (centre) also commended the Princess of Wales for her handling of the public gaze during her recent ill health (Picture: PA)
The step-daughter of the French president has hit out against conspiracy theorists targeting her mother.
Tiphaine Auziere, a 40-year-old lawyer, has described as ‘grotesque’ rumours that her mother Birgitte Macron, wife of Emmanuel Macron, was born a man.
Comparing the unfounded allegations to those surrounding the disappearance of Kate Middleton from public life, Auziere also says her mother was right to have brought legal action against those who first began to spread the false information last year.
Birgitte Macron recently won her suit against the far-right magazine Faits et Documents and the freelance journalist behind the initial story.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: ‘You have the really clear victims like my mother and the Princess of Wales, and then you have others who have been whipped up and muddled by the misinformation.
‘I was so incredibly touched by Kate’s video. I found it so moving. There she is, asking people to leave her alone so that she can get on with her medical treatment in peace.
‘But it really touched me. I thought she was so brave to do that. Because in the end she was forced to do it; there was so much pressure.
Since her disappearance from public life earlier this year, Middleton has announced she is currently undergoing cancer treatment (Picture: PA)
Auziere has called for a review of legal tools at the disposal of women who are targeted by misinformation online (Picture: AFP)
‘This, despite her having so many more important things to think about, yet everything was polluted with fake news, each piece of misinformation worse than the one before.’
She went on: ‘It’s the same kind of thing we went through, and I find those kinds of polemics grotesque, on the same level as being told we are all being governed by lizards.
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‘So our response to that – or my mother’s response – was to file a legal complaint, and I trust the law to re-establish the truth there.
‘The law does have to intervene in instances like that. On a national level, it needs to condemn that kind of behaviour, and beyond that, on a European level, we need to think about what kind of legal arsenal people should have at their disposal.’
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