Image Credit: Christian Liewig / Contributor / Getty Images 
Ten people have been found guilty in a French court of “cyber-bullying” the First Lady Brigitte Macron over claims she’s a man.
The defendants were accused of spreading false rumors about her gender and sexuality, and of making “malicious remarks” about the significant age-gap between her and President Emmanuel Macron.
Suspended sentences of up to eight months were handed down by the judge. The final ruling has not yet been published.
Today’s ruling comes as the Macrons pursue a defamation lawsuit in the US against podcaster Candace Owens.
The Macrons allege Owens “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.”
Owens has regularly claimed that Brigitte Macron “is in fact a man,” and said in March 2024 that she would stake “her entire professional reputation” on this being the case.
Brigitte Macron met her husband when she was a teacher at his high school in France.
The couple married in 2007, when he was 27 and she was in her 50s.
Back in September, the Macrons said they were prepared to “demonstrate fully” that Brigitte is in fact a woman.
“We’re prepared to demonstrate fully, both generically and specifically, that what she’s saying about Brigitte Macron is false,” the Macrons’ attorney Tom Clare told the BBC’s “Under Fire” podcast.
“”It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself, to put this type of proof forward. It is a process that [Brigitte] will have to subject herself to in a very public way. But she’s willing to do it. She is firmly resolved to do what it takes to set the record straight.”
In July, two women were cleared of defamation by a French court of appeals for questioning Brigitte Macron’s gender.
