A group of ten found guilty of digital abuse against Brigitte Macron
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A court in Paris has ruled against ten people for engaging in the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the wife of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced accusations of disseminating false claims regarding her sex and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing malicious remarks about the pair's 24-year age gap.
The court issued suspended jail terms of up to eight months to the perpetrators. The complete verdict has yet to be released.
A longstanding conspiracy theory alleging that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has been in circulation since her husband's first electoral victory in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France coincides with the Macrons initiating a defamation lawsuit in the US against conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted comparable unfounded claims about the first lady's gender.
Their legal filing contends that Owens brushed aside any factual proof contradicting her allegations choosing instead to platforming known conspiracy theorists.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her show and social networks, and in March 2024 stated that she would risk all her credibility on her insistence that Mrs. Macron is in fact a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her now-husband when she taught at his secondary school.
The couple married in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
