A Paris court has found ten individuals guilty of cyber-bullying Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron.
The defendants were accused of spreading false claims about her gender and sexuality, as well as posting insulting and harmful comments about the 24-year age difference between her and the president.
Eight men and two women were convicted. Most received suspended prison sentences of up to eight months, while one defendant was immediately jailed after failing to appear in court. Several were also ordered to have their social media accounts suspended.
In delivering the verdict, the judge said the defendants had acted with a clear intent to cause harm, describing their online remarks as degrading and deliberately malicious.
Two of those involved — self-described independent journalist Natacha Rey and internet fortune-teller Amandine Roy — had previously been convicted of slander in 2024 for claiming that France’s first lady did not exist and alleging that her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, had changed gender and taken her identity.
That conviction was later overturned on appeal, with judges ruling that claims about gender transition did not necessarily amount to an attack on personal honour. The Macrons have since appealed that decision to France’s highest court.
Following Monday’s ruling, Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, said the most meaningful outcomes were the mandatory prevention courses and the suspension of the perpetrators’ online accounts.
During the trial, Brigitte Macron’s daughter from a previous marriage, Tiphaine Auzière, testified that the sustained harassment had taken a toll on her mother’s health and daily life. She said her mother had become extremely cautious about her clothing and posture, knowing her image could be misused to fuel conspiracy theories.
Auzière added that while her mother had learned to cope with the abuse, the impact on her grandchildren had been especially painful, with the children reportedly being mocked at school.
The French ruling comes ahead of a much larger legal battle in the United States, where the Macrons have filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing influencer Candace Owens. Owens has repeatedly promoted similar conspiracy theories about Brigitte Macron’s gender across her podcast and social media platforms.
In court filings, the Macrons argue that Owens ignored credible evidence disproving the claims and instead amplified known conspiracy theorists. In March 2024, Owens publicly said she would stake her “entire professional reputation” on the assertion that the French first lady “is in fact a man”.
Initially advised to ignore the online rumours to avoid amplifying them, the presidential couple later changed strategy, deciding the scale and persistence of the attacks required a legal response — even at the risk of exposing aspects of their private lives.
False claims about Brigitte Macron’s gender have circulated online since Emmanuel Macron was first elected president in 2017.
The couple first met when she was a teacher at his secondary school. They married in 2007, when Emmanuel Macron was 29 and Brigitte Macron was in her mid-50s.
