Ten found guilty of cyberharassment Brigitte Macron

Ten people have been found guilty of cyberstalking Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, by a Paris court.

The defendants were accused of spreading false information about his gender and sexuality, as well as making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between the couple.

Most of the defendants received suspended prison sentences of up to eight months, but one was immediately jailed for failing to appear in court. Some have had their social media accounts suspended.

The judge declared that the eight men and two women had acted with a clear desire to harm Brigitte Macron, by making degrading and insulting comments online.

Two of the defendants – self-proclaimed independent journalist Natacha Rey and internet clairvoyant Amandine Roy – were found guilty of defamation in 2024 for claiming that the First Lady of France never existed.

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

They were later cleared on appeal. The argument used by the court of appeal to exonerate them was that saying that a person had changed sex did not necessarily constitute an “attack on their honor”.

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

“The most important thing is the prevention courses and the suspension of certain accounts” of the perpetrators, declared Jean Ennochi, Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, after the verdict was delivered, reported the AFP news agency.

Tiphaine Auzière, the daughter of Brigitte Macron’s previous marriage, previously testified at trial that cyberharassment had had negative consequences on her mother’s health and living conditions.

She said her mother “had to be careful with her choices of outfits, postures… she knows perfectly well that her image will be used to support these theories.”

If her mother “learned to live with it”, says Auzière, she suffered the repercussions on her grandchildren, who were taunted at school.

Monday’s ruling in France is a harbinger of a much bigger trial coming in the United States, where the Macrons have filed a defamation suit against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who has also expressed conspiracy theories about the first lady’s gender.

They alleged that she “ignored all credible evidence refuting her claims in favor of a platform of known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.”

Owens has regularly repeated these claims on her podcast and social media, and said in March 2024 that she would stake her “entire professional reputation” on her belief that the first lady “is actually a man.”

The presidential couple was first informed that the best solution was to ignore online rumors, because going to court would only amplify them.

But last year there was a radical change of direction.

The Macrons decided that the scale of the online attacks was now too great to ignore. So, at the risk of exposing their personalities in an American court, they decided to fight back against the conspiracy theorists.

A conspiracy theory claiming that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman has been circulating since her husband’s first election in 2017.

Brigitte Macron first met her current husband while she was a teacher at his high school.

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