Ten found guilty of cyber-bullying directed at Brigitte Macron
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A court in Paris has found guilty ten people for engaging in the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the partner of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced accusations of circulating false claims regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to making malicious remarks about the couple's 24-year age gap.
The court delivered suspended jail terms of a maximum of eight months to the perpetrators. The detailed judgment has still to be made public.
A longstanding unfounded claim claiming that Brigitte Macron is a trans woman has existed since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This recent ruling in France comes as the Macrons pursuing a libel case in the US against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the French president's wife's identity.
Their lawsuit contends that Owens ignored substantial counter-evidence contradicting her allegations choosing instead to platforming known conspiracy theorists.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her podcast and social networks, and in March 2024 proclaimed that she would risk all her credibility on her insistence that Mrs. Macron was born a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her current spouse when she taught at his high school.
The two married in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
