Ten people found guilty of Brigitte Macron cyberbullying

A Paris court has found ten people guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The defendant is accused of spreading false information about her gender and sexual orientation and making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between the couple.

Most of the defendants were given suspended sentences of up to eight months, but one was immediately jailed for missing court. Some people’s social media accounts were suspended.

The judge said the eight men and two women acted with a clear intention to harm Brigitte Macron and made insulting and insulting comments online.

Two of the defendants – self-styled independent journalist Natasha Rey and internet fortune teller Amandine Roy – were convicted of libel in 2024 for claiming the French first lady never existed.

They said her brother, Jean-Michel Troniux, had changed gender and started using her name.

They were later acquitted on appeal. The argument used by the Court of Appeal in clarifying the charges was that saying someone had changed gender was not necessarily an “attack on their honour”.

The Macrons are currently taking the case to the High Court of Appeal.

According to Agence France-Presse, Brigitte Macron’s lawyer Jean Enoch said after the verdict was handed down that “the most important thing is to conduct prevention courses for the perpetrators and suspend some accounts.”

Tiphaine Auzière, Brigitte Macron’s daughter from a previous marriage, previously told the trial that cyberbullying had a negative impact on her mother’s health and living conditions.

She said her mother “had to be careful about her choices of clothing, her poses…she was very aware that her image would be used to support these theories”.

Ozier said that while her mother “learned to live with it,” her grandchildren were teased at school and she was affected by it.

Monday’s ruling in France is a precursor to a larger trial to come in the United States, where the Macrons have filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also expressed conspiracy theories about the first lady’s gender.

They claim she “ignored all credible evidence refuting her claims in favor of known conspiracy theorists and proven detractors.”

Owens often repeats the claim on her podcast and social media channels, saying in March 2024 that she would bet her “entire professional reputation” on her belief that the first lady “is actually a man.”

The president and his wife were initially told that the best course of action was to ignore online gossip, as pursuing legal action would only amplify it.

But of course there has been a fundamental change in the last year.

Macron and his wife believe that the scale of cyber attacks is now too large and cannot be ignored. So, at the risk of having their private lives exposed in a U.S. court, they decided to fight back against the conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy theories that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman have been circulating since she was first elected in 2017.

When Brigitte Macron first met her now-husband, she was still a teacher at his secondary school.

The couple married in 2007, when the future French president was 29 and she was in her 50s.