A group of ten sentenced of online harassment targeting Brigitte Macron
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A French judicial body has ruled against ten people for carrying out the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of French President, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced charges of circulating fabrications regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the pair's age disparity of 24 years.
The court handed down conditional custodial sentences of a maximum of eight months to the convicted individuals. The full ruling has still to be made public.
A circulating unfounded claim alleging that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has been in circulation since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France is concurrent with the Macrons engaging in a defamation lawsuit in the United States of America against conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the first lady's gender.
Their complaint alleges that Owens brushed aside substantial counter-evidence contradicting her allegations opting to amplify the voices of notorious conspiracy peddlers.
Owens has regularly repeated these claims on her podcast and online platforms, and in March 2024 stated that she would stake her entire professional reputation on her conviction that Mrs. Macron is biologically male.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her future husband when she taught at his lycée.
The two tied the knot in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
