A group of ten found guilty of digital abuse targeting Brigitte Macron
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A Paris court has convicted ten people for perpetrating the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced charges of disseminating fabrications regarding her gender identity and sexual orientation, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the husband and wife's age disparity of 24 years.
The court issued conditional custodial sentences of as much as eight months to the convicted individuals. The detailed judgment has not yet been published.
A persistent unfounded claim claiming that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has spread widely since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This recent ruling in France coincides with the Macrons pursuing a legal action for defamation in the US against conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted analogous false narratives about the French president's wife's biological sex.
Their lawsuit contends that Owens brushed aside all credible evidence that refuted her assertions in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists.
Owens has regularly repeated these assertions on her podcast and social media channels, and in March 2024 stated that she would risk all her credibility on her conviction that Mrs. Macron was born a man.
Brigitte Macron first met her now-husband when she worked as an educator at his secondary school.
The pair married in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.