Ten individuals sentenced of online harassment directed at Brigitte Macron

A court in Paris has convicted ten people for perpetrating the online harassment of Brigitte Macron, the partner of French President, Emmanuel Macron.

The defendants faced allegations of disseminating false claims regarding her gender and sexual orientation, in addition to making hurtful comments about the couple's age disparity of 24 years.

The court issued suspended prison sentences of as much as eight months to the perpetrators. The complete verdict has still to be made public.

A circulating false narrative suggesting that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has existed since her husband's initial election in 2017.

This latest legal outcome in France comes as the Macrons pursuing a legal action for defamation in the US against conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has also voiced similar conspiracy theories about the Brigitte Macron's identity.

Their legal filing contends that Owens disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim opting to amplify the voices of notorious conspiracy peddlers.

Owens has often echoed these assertions on her podcast and online platforms, and in March 2024 declared that she would risk all her credibility on her conviction that Mrs. Macron was born a man.

Brigitte Macron initially encountered her future husband when she was a teacher at his secondary school.

The pair entered into matrimony in 2007, when the then-29-year-old Emmanuel Macron was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.