Brigitte Macron faces legal complaint after insulting feminist protesters

Brigitte Macron is facing a legal complaint after being filmed calling feminist protesters at a Paris theatre show “stupid bitches”.

More than 300 women, 343 in total, have filed a complaint against the French first lady for public insult. The number is a deliberate reference to a landmark moment in French feminist history.

The remarks were caught on video last week backstage at the Folies Bergère theatre in Paris. Macron was speaking with the actor and comedian Ary Abittan, whose show she attended with her daughter and friends.

The night before, feminist activists had disrupted Abittan’s performance, shouting: “Abittan, rapist!”

Abittan was accused of rape in 2021. Magistrates dropped the case in 2024 due to insufficient evidence, a decision upheld on appeal in January this year.

In the video, Macron asks Abittan how he is feeling. When he says he is scared, she refers to the protesters as “sales connes” and adds that if they reappear “we’ll toss them out”.

Juliette Chapelle, a lawyer representing the feminist groups behind the complaint, said Macron’s position made her comments particularly serious.

“She’s France’s first lady, her words matter,” Chapelle told France Inter radio.

Chapelle added that while Macron has publicly presented herself as committed to women’s rights, the video suggested a contradiction between her public stance and her private views.

The feminist group Nous Toutes (“All of Us”), which took part in the protest, said its activists were denouncing what it described as a “culture of impunity” surrounding sexual violence in France.

Speaking to the media outlet Brut this week, Macron said she was sorry “if I hurt women victims”. She described the remarks as private comments.

“I can’t regret them,” she added. “I am the wife of the president of the republic, but I am above all myself. And when I am in private, I can let myself go in a way that is not totally proper.”

Among the organisations bringing the complaint is Les Tricoteuses Hystériques (“The Hysterical Knitters”), founded in 2024 during France’s largest rape trial.

That trial saw dozens of men convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot after she was drugged by her former husband. During proceedings, a defence lawyer described protesting women outside the court as “hysterical” and “tricoteuses”, a reference to women who knitted while watching executions during the French Revolution.

Read the related story from New Daily Prime: Brigitte Macron faces backlash over sexist slur

The figure of 343 complainants echoes a 1971 manifesto in which 343 women publicly declared they had undergone illegal abortions, a pivotal moment in France’s fight for reproductive rights.

Several public figures have expressed solidarity with the protesters by reclaiming the insult online using the hashtag #salesconnes.

Judith Godrèche, an actor and director who has become a prominent voice in France’s #MeToo movement, wrote on social media: “Me too, I’m also a salle conne, and I support all the others.”

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