A verdict is expected later Tuesday evening.
Auzières said the conspiracy theories had made it “impossible” for her mother “to have a normal life.” When asked about her uncle Jean-Michel, she testified she had seen him “a few months ago” and that he was “doing very well.”
The 10 defendants — eight men and two women from their 40s to their 60s — cut an unlikely cross-section of France. They range from a well-off computer scientist working in Switzerland to a heavily disabled man “who spends a lot of time on Twitter,” a self-described spiritual medium crippled by debt and a soft-spoken deputy mayor in a rural town.
The messages read aloud in court swung between crude jokes about Brigitte Macron’s alleged gender identity, conspiracy theories about a media cover-up, and sneers at the 24-year age gap between her and the president.
Most cited free expression in their defense, invoking the legacy of Charlie Hebdo — the satirical weekly famed for its provocative cartoons and its defiance in the face of the 2015 terrorist attack on the magazine that left 12 people dead.
Auzières said the widespread rumors had led her mother to change her behavior, constantly worrying that the way she dressed or presented herself could be used by conspiracy theorists to attack her. She also said her mother had grown “anxious” that her seven grandchildren could face bullying at school.
