The Justice of France will sit in the dock starting in July next year four men suspected of having harassed online to Brigitte Macronthe wife of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, with “malicious comments” about her gender, sexuality and the age difference between them.
At the end of August, Brigitte Macron filed a complaint for “cyberbullying”, a crime punished with up to two years in prison. This same week, the French authorities announced the arrest of four suspectsamong whom is a prominent Internet figure accused of defending conspiracy theories.
According to the prosecutor, the comments regarding age difference between Macron and his wife – 46 and 71 years old, respectively – were formulated from a point that “assimilates them to the pedophilia“. The possibly sexist nature of the comments does not constitute an aggravating circumstance, according to reports BFMTV.
Brigitte Macron has been recurring object of hoaxes since her husband’s rise to the French presidency in 2017. In fact, last September two women were sentenced to pay fines and compensation for spreading false information that the French first lady would be a transsexual woman.
A Paris court ordered that the two culprits pay a fine of 500 euros and compensation of 8,000 and 5,000 euros to Brigitte Macron and her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, both of whom were involved in this case, according to tax sources cited by Franceinfo. The accused are an alleged medium, Amandine Roy, and a “self-taught independent journalist”, Natacha Rey. Both spoke in 2021 for four hours on YouTube about the alleged deception that would be the life of the president’s wife, Emmanuel Macron, a recurring object of hoaxes since her husband’s arrival at the Elysée in 2017.