Ten found guilty of cyber-bullying against Brigitte Macron
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A Paris court has found guilty ten people for perpetrating the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the partner of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced allegations of circulating fabrications regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to posting defamatory statements about the pair's 24-year age gap.
The court handed down suspended prison sentences of a maximum of eight months to the perpetrators. The complete verdict has still to be made public.
A circulating false narrative alleging that Brigitte Macron is a trans 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 conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has also voiced comparable unfounded claims about the French president's wife's gender.
Their lawsuit alleges that Owens brushed aside substantial counter-evidence contradicting her allegations in favour of amplify the voices of notorious conspiracy peddlers.
Owens has often echoed these allegations on her show 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 current spouse when she worked as an educator at his lycée.
The pair tied the knot in 2007, when the then-29-year-old Emmanuel Macron was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.