A group of ten convicted of cyber-bullying directed at Brigitte Macron
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A court in Paris has convicted ten people for perpetrating the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced accusations of circulating false claims regarding her gender and sexuality, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the husband and wife's age disparity of 24 years.
The court issued conditional custodial sentences of up to eight months to the convicted individuals. The detailed judgment has not yet been published.
A longstanding conspiracy theory alleging that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has spread widely since her husband's first electoral victory in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France comes as the Macrons engaging in a libel case in the United States of America against political commentator Candace Owens, who has repeatedly shared analogous false narratives about the Brigitte Macron's identity.
Their complaint alleges that Owens ignored any factual proof that refuted her assertions opting to give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her podcast and social networks, and in March 2024 proclaimed that she would bet her whole career on her conviction that Mrs. Macron is in fact a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her future husband when she worked as an educator at his secondary school.
The couple tied the knot in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was 54.
