Ten sentenced of online harassment directed at Brigitte Macron
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A French judicial body has convicted ten people for carrying out the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the wife of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
The accused individuals faced allegations of disseminating false claims regarding her gender and sexual orientation, in addition to publishing malicious remarks about the couple's 24-year age gap.
The court handed down conditional custodial sentences of up to eight months to the convicted individuals. The detailed judgment has still to be made public.
A circulating false narrative suggesting that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has been in circulation since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This Monday's court decision in France is concurrent with the Macrons pursuing a legal action for defamation in the United States against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also voiced analogous false narratives about the first lady's gender.
Their legal filing contends that Owens brushed aside substantial counter-evidence that refuted her assertions in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists.
Owens has regularly repeated these allegations on her digital program and social networks, and in March 2024 declared that she would stake her entire professional reputation on her insistence that Mrs. Macron was born a man.
Brigitte Macron initially encountered her future husband when she worked as an educator at his lycée.
The two tied the knot in 2007, when the man who would become president was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.