Ten individuals convicted of cyber-bullying directed at Brigitte Macron
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A French judicial body has convicted ten people for perpetrating the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the wife of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced charges of circulating false claims regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to making defamatory statements about the couple's age disparity of 24 years.
The court issued conditional custodial sentences of up to eight months to the perpetrators. The full ruling has not yet been published.
A longstanding conspiracy theory alleging that Brigitte Macron is a trans woman has been in circulation since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This recent ruling in France is concurrent with the Macrons engaging in a defamation lawsuit in the United States against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced comparable unfounded claims about the French president's wife's identity.
Their lawsuit alleges that Owens ignored any factual proof contradicting her allegations opting to give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has often echoed these allegations on her digital program and social media channels, and in March 2024 declared that she would bet her whole career on her conviction that Mrs. Macron is in fact a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her now-husband when she was a teacher at his secondary school.
The two tied the knot in 2007, when the then-29-year-old Emmanuel Macron was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
