Ten individuals sentenced of digital abuse targeting 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 partner of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.
The those on trial faced accusations of spreading untruths regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to making defamatory statements about the pair's age disparity of 24 years.
The court issued suspended prison sentences of a maximum of eight months to the convicted individuals. The complete verdict has yet to be released.
A circulating false narrative claiming that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has existed since her husband's first electoral victory in 2017.
This recent ruling in France comes as the Macrons initiating a libel case in the United States against conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the first lady's biological sex.
Their legal filing states that Owens ignored all credible evidence disproving her claim in favour of give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has regularly repeated these assertions on her show and online platforms, and in March 2024 stated that she would risk all her credibility on her belief that Mrs. Macron is in fact a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her now-husband when she was a teacher at his secondary school.
The couple married in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was 54.
