A group of ten convicted of online harassment directed at Brigitte Macron
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A court in Paris has ruled against ten people for carrying out the digital intimidation of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of French President, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced accusations of spreading false claims regarding her gender and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing hurtful comments about the husband and wife's 24-year age gap.
The court delivered suspended jail terms of as much as eight months to the perpetrators. The complete verdict has still to be made public.
A circulating false narrative suggesting that Brigitte Macron is a trans woman has been in circulation since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This latest legal outcome in France comes as the Macrons pursuing a defamation lawsuit in the United States of America against political commentator Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the French president's wife's identity.
Their legal filing contends that Owens brushed aside any factual proof that refuted her assertions choosing instead to amplify the voices of notorious conspiracy peddlers.
Owens has often echoed these claims on her show and online platforms, and in March 2024 declared that she would stake her entire professional reputation on her insistence that Mrs. Macron is biologically male.
Brigitte Macron first met her now-husband when she taught at his secondary school.
The two married in 2007, when the then-29-year-old Emmanuel Macron was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.
