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A Paris court has ruled against ten people for engaging in the digital intimidation of Brigitte Macron, the partner of France's leader, Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants faced allegations of spreading fabrications regarding her gender identity and sexuality, in addition to publishing defamatory statements about the pair's significant age difference.
The court delivered conditional custodial sentences of up to eight months to the perpetrators. The detailed judgment has yet to be released.
A circulating unfounded claim alleging that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has been in circulation since her husband's rise to the presidency in 2017.
This latest legal outcome in France coincides with the Macrons pursuing a defamation lawsuit in the United States against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has likewise promoted similar conspiracy theories about the first lady's identity.
Their complaint contends that Owens ignored substantial counter-evidence that refuted her assertions opting to give a platform to established defamers.
Owens has frequently reiterated these claims on her podcast and online platforms, and in March 2024 proclaimed that she would bet her whole career on her insistence that Mrs. Macron is in fact a man.
Brigitte Macron first met her future husband when she worked as an educator at his secondary school.
The couple tied the knot in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was in her mid-50s.
