The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

the times | Wednesday December 22 2021 2GM 39

dismissed them as “grotesque”. But they

have circulated more widely recently.

Antivaxers and people close to

the gilet jaune movement, who

protested against President

Macron in 2018 and 2019,

have shared the rumours on

Twitter and Facebook. They

claim that the president’s

wife is a transgender woman

formerly called Jean-Michel

Trogneux (Trogneux is her

maiden name). More than

66,000 people on Twitter

have posted messages with

the tag #JeanMichelTrogneux, often

including transphobic comments.

Many of the messages dispute that

she is the mother of the children

she had with her first husband,

André-Louis Auzière, who

died last year. The claims are

unsubstantiated.

Commentators fear the

French election next year

could be caught up in the same

sorts of conspiracy theory that

accompanied Donald Trump’s

rise to power in America. The

Macron rumour appears to

have been launched by a

woman close to QAnon and

antisemitic groups.

She called in 2018 for

l

Brigitte Macron’s laywer

said she would claim that

she had been libelled

Football hooligan’s murder

exposes Italian underworld

Page 42

Canoeist who crossed

America by river

Page 41

sues over web claim she was born a man

Macron’s “execution” to avenge the

deaths of King Louis XVI and Marie-

Antoinette.

Le Monde said that the spread of the

“outlandish” claims suggested an

“Americanisation” of the country’s

political culture. Macron, 44, and his

wife, 68, have often been targeted by

rumours, sometimes because of their

age difference.

A YouGov survey published this year

found that French and American

people were more likely to believe

conspiracy theories than the British. It

reported that 38 per cent of French

respondents said the dangers of vacci-

nations had been hidden, compared

with 33 per cent of Americans and

19 per cent of Britons.

MIKHAIL TERESHCHENKO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Rogue Democrat

killed Biden bill to

reduce drug deaths

The rogue Democratic senator who

torpedoed President Biden’s massive

social spending bill has privately voiced

fears that low-income parents would

waste their child tax credit payments

on drugs.

Joe Manchin, from the deeply con-

servative state of West Virginia, also

believed that another proposal, state-

funded sick pay, would be abused by

employees feigning illness to go on

hunting trips, according to reports of

his conversations.

Manchin’s reasoning behind his

opposition to two social programmes

— supported by every other Democrat

in the country — shows just how out of

step he is with his party. His influence is

enormous because every vote counts in

a Senate divided among the two parties

with 50 seats each and all the Republi-

cans opposed to Biden’s signature Build

Back Better Act. The vice-president’s

casting vote gives the Democrats an

effective majority.

The 74-year-old senator’s refusal to

support Biden’s $1.75 trillion package of

measures before Christmas, as the rest

of his party had hoped, left it scrabbling

yesterday for an alternative strategy.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority

leader, vowed to bring the bill to the

chamber in the new year for a vote so

that every senator “has the opportunity

to make their position known on the

Senate floor, not just on television”.

Manchin had announced his opposi-

tion on Fox News after weeks of frantic

negotiations.

Jen Psaki, the White House press

secretary, moderated the ferocious crit-

icism that met Manchin’s decision on

Sunday — when she condemned the

“breach of his commitments to the

president and the senator’s colleagues”

— so that by Monday Manchin and

Biden were “long-time friends” who

“share fundamental values”, a sign that

the president believes he can talk the

senator round. Manchin has been his

own man his whole life, however, draw-

ing comparisons with the late senator

John McCain who became a thorn in

the side of President Trump and cast

the key vote against ending President

Obama’s healthcare programme.

Speaking to a local radio station,

Manchin blamed White House staff for

“inexcusable” briefing against him. He

said: “They figure surely to God we can

move one person. Surely, we can badger

and beat one person up.” He added:

“Well, guess what? I’m from West Vir-

ginia. I’m not from where they’re from,

[where] they can just beat the living

crap out of people and think they’ll be

submissive.”

Most of the briefing against Manchin

has focused on his lucrative connec-

tions to the coal industry and his life-

long resistance to environmental

measures, like the ones in the giant bill.

After graduating from West Virginia

University in 1970 he worked in his

parents’ grocery business before start-

ing a coal brokerage called Ener-

systems in 1988. When he became West

Virginia secretary of state in 2000 he

handed control of the business to his

son, Joseph IV, but retains a sharehold-

ing with between $1 million and $5 mil-

lion and other interests in a blind trust.

Biden yesterday insisted that he

could still reach agreement with Man-

chin. “Senator Manchin and I are going

to get something done,” he said.

Biden faces defeat on his landmark

welfare bill, leading article, page 37

United States

David Charter Washington

Fat chance I’ll step on those

scales, Americans tell doctor

Joshua Thurston

At a local surgery in Omaha, Nebraska,

overweight Americans who feel

uncomfortable standing on the scales

can present a “Don’t Weigh Me” card to

their doctor.

“They have cards at my doctor’s

office now to tell them if you’d prefer

not to be weighed,” wrote Dani Dono-

van, sharing an image of the card on

Twitter. “Saying no when you’re asked

to step on the scale at

the doctor’s office can

feel so intimidating.”

Created by More-

Love.org, the cards

ask doctors not to

weigh patients “unless

it’s medically necessa-

ry”. On the back are reasons why the

holder does not want to be weighed, in-

cluding “most conditions can be ad-

dressed without knowing my weight”

and “when you ask about my weight I

get stressed”.

The group says: “We live in a fatpho-

bic society, being weighed causes feel-

ings of stress and shame.” Ginny Jones,

editor of More-Love.org, wrote: “You can

give these cards to healthcare workers

to help explain why you or your child

are not stepping on

the scale.”

Donovan’s post

provoked a mixed

reaction, with one

user replying:

“This ranks right

up there with

antivaxers. The

card assumes the

person knows more than a doctor.”

Joe Manchin has

close links with

the coal industry

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The cards say being

weighed is stressful

President Putin and Valery

Gerasimov, his defence

chief, present a map of

Ukraine, shown in red, in

Moscow yesterday. The

arrows highlight the names

of towns where, it is

claimed, “mercenaries” who

will fight for the United

States are already

stationed. Crimea is marked

as Russian territory.

The other countries shown

are Moldova and,

underneath, Bulgaria

(Ukraine)