A group of ten sentenced of online harassment targeting Brigitte Macron

A French judicial body has convicted ten people for carrying out the digital intimidation of Brigitte Macron, the wife of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.

The defendants faced charges of spreading false claims regarding her gender identity and sexual orientation, in addition to making malicious remarks about the pair's significant age difference.

The court delivered suspended jail terms of up to eight months to the convicted individuals. The full ruling has not yet been published.

A circulating unfounded claim suggesting that Brigitte Macron is a person assigned male at birth has been in circulation since her husband's initial election in 2017.

This recent ruling in France comes as the Macrons engaging in a libel case in the US against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted comparable unfounded claims about the French president's wife's gender.

Their complaint contends that Owens ignored any factual proof disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists.

Owens has regularly repeated these claims on her show and online platforms, and in March 2024 stated that she would risk all her credibility on her conviction that Mrs. Macron is biologically male.

Brigitte Macron first met her now-husband when she taught at his high school.

The couple married in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was approximately 54 years old.