Ten individuals found guilty of digital abuse targeting Brigitte Macron

A court in Paris has ruled against ten people for perpetrating the cyber-bullying of Brigitte Macron, the wife of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.

The defendants faced accusations of circulating false claims regarding her gender identity and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing hurtful comments about the pair's age disparity of 24 years.

The court delivered suspended prison sentences of a maximum of eight months to the defendants. The complete verdict has not yet been published.

A longstanding false narrative alleging that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has existed since her husband's initial election in 2017.

This Monday's court decision in France is concurrent with the Macrons initiating a legal action for defamation in the United States against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced analogous false narratives about the Brigitte Macron's biological sex.

Their lawsuit alleges that Owens disregarded substantial counter-evidence disproving her claim opting to give a platform to established defamers.

Owens has regularly repeated these claims on her show and social networks, and in March 2024 declared that she would risk all her credibility on her insistence that Mrs. Macron was born a man.

Brigitte Macron first met her current spouse when she was a teacher at his secondary school.

The two tied the knot in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.