The wife of the current French president has been the target of the circulating rumours, which have been shared on social media in France under the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux. The tweets falsely claim the 68-year-old first lady is a trans woman, whose name at birth, also known as a deadname, was Jean Michel Trogneux.

       “Trogneux” is the maiden name of Brigitte Macron.

       The hashtag has been used more than 66,000 times on Twitter.

       It is reported that Mrs Macron is now threatening legal action against those who founded the claims.

       Le Figaro reports that The First Lady intends to initiate proceedings and file a complaint against the instigators of the bizarre conspiracy theory.

       CNews reports that the origin of the controversial theory derives from an extreme right-wing journal Faits et Documents, which was published in September.

       The monthly journal claims a three-year investigation supported by “many experts” made the allegation against Emmanuel Macron’s wife.

       Natacha Rey, the journalist who is said to have investigated the claim in the journal, took part in an interview to discuss the theory with medium Amandine Roy.

       The interview, which lasted nearly four hours, appeared on YouTube on December 10, according to Numerama.

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       The video was reportedly viewed 470,000 times before being deleted.

       Faits et Documents has previously published a number of other conspiracy theories about other public figures.

       Despite this, the ludicrous suggestions about the First Lady were widely circulated on social media earlier this month.

       The hashtag used to circulate the claim became one of the most discussed topics on French Twitter last week.

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       It was shared by a number of conspiracy and anti-vaxxer Twitter accounts.

       Some of the tweets claim that Ms Macron’s gait and way of sitting in a video of a speech given by the French First Lady are “evidence” of their theory.

       While others scrutinised her clothing and appearance from public events.

       The rumour emerged just months ahead of the next French presidential election, which takes place in April next year.

       Opinion polls so far indicate that Mr Macron, who has yet to officially declare his candidacy, would win a second mandate.

       Mr Macron’s wife is not the only figure in the political field to have been the subject of this kind of fake theory.

       When she was First Lady in 2017, Michelle Obama was also the victim of similar absurd claims.