“This fake news should in fact have gone unnoticed,” assures Emmanuel Anizon, senior reporter and author of “L’Affaire madame”

During the presidential campaign in 2021, an Internet user implied on Facebook that the first lady would be a man. Since then, this false information has been widely relayed online, to the point that it had to be publicly denied by the president and Brigitte Macron. “This fake news should actually have gone unnoticed. But it did not go unnoticed”says Emmanuel Anizon, senior reporter and author of The Affair madam. On the contrary, its virality forced the first lady to speak out and “to file a defamation complaint”, according to the journalist.

Fake news that doesn’t disappear

This fake news has also gone beyond the borders of France, as the author recalls, since it has been taken up at the international level. “It touches the top of the State, (…), it forces the top of the State to react”, Judge Emmanuel Anizon. According to her, this false information would even have “an echo that has continued to be contradicted ever since”since it continued to circulate.