Ten individuals found guilty of digital abuse targeting Brigitte Macron
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A French judicial body has convicted ten people for carrying out the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced charges of disseminating untruths regarding her sex and sexual orientation, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the pair's significant age difference.
The court delivered suspended jail terms of a maximum of eight months to the perpetrators. The detailed judgment has still to be made public.
A longstanding false narrative claiming that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has spread widely since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France coincides with the Macrons initiating a defamation lawsuit in the United States against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced comparable unfounded claims about the French president's wife's biological sex.
Their legal filing states that Owens disregarded substantial counter-evidence disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her show 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 taught at his lycée.
The couple married in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was 54.
