In July 2018, false information circulated on social media, claiming that Aurore Bergé and Alexandre Benalla were going to get married. The headline was entirely fabricated, and the content was parodic. But the damage was done: shared thousands of times, this false information created a lasting association between the two names in search engines.
The Mechanics of a Political Fake News Around Bergé and Benalla
The rumor emerged in the context of the Benalla affair, which was at the center of French news, and the media visibility of Aurore Bergé, spokesperson for the La République en marche group in the National Assembly.
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Many internet users shared the information without verifying its source or its parodic nature. The recommendation algorithms did the rest: the headline circulated on Facebook, Twitter, and forums, creating an artificial association between the two personalities.
When one today looks into the marriage of Aurore Bergé and Alexandre Benalla, they still encounter results that perpetuate the confusion, several years after the initial dissemination.
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Aurore Bergé and Alexandre Benalla: Verification in Civil Registry Records
Beyond media denials, documentary verification efforts have been undertaken. The civil registry records contain no trace of this marriage. The public databases consulted revealed no documents linking Aurore Bergé and Alexandre Benalla, whether in Paris or elsewhere in France.
This lack of material evidence distinguishes this case from other political rumors. We are not talking about a supposed relationship later denied, but about an event (a marriage) that simply never took place and for which no factual element has ever been produced.
The two protagonists also have no known personal connection. Aurore Bergé, a deputy from Yvelines, and Alexandre Benalla, a former mission officer at the Élysée, have operated in distinct spheres despite their temporal proximity in the political news of 2018.
Cyclical Resurgence of the Bergé-Benalla Rumor
A cyclical resurgence phenomenon is observed. Each time Aurore Bergé or Alexandre Benalla reappears in the news, searches associating their two names rise again. This mechanism can be explained by how search engines work: past queries feed automatic suggestions, which in turn generate new searches.
This cycle has concrete consequences:
- Google suggestions still propose “Aurore Bergé Benalla marriage” when typing the name of the deputy, which maintains doubt among internet users discovering the rumor for the first time.
- Low-credibility sites regularly republish articles on the subject to capture traffic, without providing new information.
- Fact-checkers must periodically update their verifications, which paradoxically keeps the topic visible in search results.
The rumor survives because the search cycle is self-sustaining, not because new elements are emerging.
A Case Study Used in Fact-Checking Training
The false marriage of Bergé and Benalla has gone beyond the stage of anecdote. Specialized sites analyzing misinformation now use it as a teaching example in fact-checking workshops. It illustrates a specific type of fake news: one that relies on zero material elements but establishes itself durably in the digital space thanks to its virality.
What makes this case particularly interesting from a pedagogical perspective is the disproportion between the source and the effect produced (years of referenced confusion). We are faced with a fake news without a credible primary source, without a photo, without testimony, without documentation, yet it continues to generate searches.
The training sessions that use it highlight several verification points that anyone can apply:
- Identify the nature of the source site (satirical, parodic, informational) before sharing content.
- Verify the existence of a civil registry act when a rumor concerns a marriage or an official event.
- Cross-check systematically with at least two reliable sources before considering information as verified.
Online Political Misinformation: The Limits of Denial
Neither Aurore Bergé nor Alexandre Benalla needed to publish a formal denial on this specific subject, as the lack of foundation was evident to the newsrooms that covered the Benalla affair in 2018. Aurore Bergé focused on her political positions during the crisis, declaring herself “even more determined” after Emmanuel Macron’s speech before the majority, according to her statements to France Info in July 2018.
The paradox is that an official denial could have amplified the visibility of the rumor. Denouncing a fake news sometimes makes it exist more in search results, by creating new indexed content around the same keywords.
This case reminds us that political misinformation in France does not always rely on sophisticated operations. A poorly identified parodic article, suggestion algorithms, and burning news are enough to create false information that persists for years in search results, without any new facts ever supporting it.