A group of ten sentenced of online harassment targeting Brigitte Macron
Photo credit
A French judicial body has found guilty ten people for engaging in the digital intimidation of Brigitte Macron, the spouse of French President, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced allegations of spreading untruths regarding her gender and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing defamatory statements about the couple's age disparity of 24 years.
The court handed down conditional custodial sentences of a maximum of eight months to the convicted individuals. The complete verdict has still to be made public.
A longstanding conspiracy theory alleging that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has spread widely since her husband's first electoral victory in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France coincides with the Macrons engaging in a libel case in the United States against political commentator Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted comparable unfounded claims about the Brigitte Macron's identity.
Their lawsuit alleges that Owens disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim opting to amplify the voices of notorious conspiracy peddlers.
Owens has often echoed these claims on her show and social media channels, and in March 2024 proclaimed that she would stake her entire professional reputation on her insistence that Mrs. Macron was born a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her current spouse when she worked as an educator at his high school.
The couple married in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
