She said: “You have the really clear victims like my mother and the Princess of Wales, and then you have others who have been whipped up and muddled by the misinformation.

“I was so incredibly touched by Kate’s video. I found it so moving. There she is, asking people to leave her alone so that she can get on with her medical treatment in peace.

“But it really touched me. I thought she was so brave to do that. Because in the end she was forced to do it; there was so much pressure.

“This, despite her having so many more important things to think about, yet everything was polluted with fake news, each piece of misinformation worse than the one before. It’s the same kind of thing we went through, and I find those kinds of polemics grotesque, on the same level as being told we are all being governed by lizards.”

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President Macron, 47, expressed his anger and frustration about continual speculation about Brigitte Macron, 70, whom he married in 2007. He called the rumours spread about his wife “false and fabricated.”

Those spreading the rumours were Amandine Roy, 52, and Natacha Rey, 48, who styled herself as a freelance journalist. A judge sitting at Lisieux, in Normandy, originally fined the two women the equivalent of £1700 each, after finding them both guilty of libel.

Auziere said: “The law does have to intervene in instances like that.

“On a national level, it needs to condemn that kind of behaviour, and beyond that, on a European level, we need to think about what kind of legal arsenal people should have at their disposal.”