A group of ten sentenced of digital abuse targeting Brigitte Macron
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A Paris court has convicted ten people for perpetrating the digital intimidation of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced accusations of spreading false claims regarding her gender identity and sexual orientation, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the pair's 24-year age gap.
The court handed down suspended jail terms of up to eight months to the defendants. The full ruling has not yet been published.
A persistent false narrative claiming 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 coincides with the Macrons pursuing a legal action for defamation in the US against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the French president's wife's gender.
Their legal filing contends that Owens brushed aside all credible evidence disproving her claim choosing instead to give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has regularly repeated these claims on her digital program and social networks, and in March 2024 declared that she would bet her whole career on her conviction that Mrs. Macron is biologically male.
Brigitte Macron originally became acquainted with her now-husband when she worked as an educator at his lycée.
The couple entered into matrimony in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was 54.
