A group of ten found guilty of online harassment directed at Brigitte Macron
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A court in Paris has convicted ten people for engaging in the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the wife of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The those on trial faced charges of disseminating false claims regarding her gender and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing defamatory statements about the pair's significant age difference.
The court delivered suspended jail terms of up to eight months to the defendants. The complete verdict has still to be made public.
A longstanding false narrative alleging that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has spread widely 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 right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted similar conspiracy theories about the French president's wife's identity.
Their legal filing contends that Owens disregarded substantial counter-evidence that refuted her assertions choosing instead to give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her podcast and online platforms, and in March 2024 proclaimed that she would risk all her credibility on her conviction that Mrs. Macron was born a man.
Brigitte Macron originally became acquainted with her current spouse when she was a teacher at his high school.
The two entered into matrimony in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.
