{"id":330789,"date":"2025-08-09T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330789\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T14:50:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:50:26","slug":"macrons-file-us-lawsuit-over-claims-frances-first-lady-was-born-male","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330789\/","title":{"rendered":"Macrons file US lawsuit over claims France\u2019s first lady was born male"},"content":{"rendered":"

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte have filed a US defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens, a rightwing influencer and podcaster who has said France\u2019s first lady \u201cis in fact a man\u201d. <\/p>\n

The 218-page lawsuit, filed in Delaware on Wednesday, accuses Owens of publishing \u201coutlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions\u201d, chief among them that Brigitte Macron<\/a> was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux. <\/p>\n

Owens has also said the French president and his wife were blood relatives and that Emmanuel Macron<\/a> was a product of a CIA human experiment or \u201ca similar government mind control programme\u201d, according to the Macrons\u2019 court filing. <\/p>\n

The suit is a rare case of a serving world leader personally suing an online influencer over their content, though it comes days after Donald Trump sued<\/a> The Wall Street Journal and its parent companies over a report of a letter that the US president allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

The Macrons face a high legal bar, since US defamation laws require public figures to show \u201cactual malice\u201d, meaning that the person knew the information was false or had a reckless disregard for the truth. The Macrons are seeking a jury trial and punitive damages. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe principle here is truth,\u201d the Macrons\u2019 lawyer Thomas Clare, co-founder of defamation specialist firm Clare Locke, told the Financial Times. \u201cThey believe it\u2019s important to stand up for themselves\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Owens has had multiple opportunities to do the right thing and in response she has only mocked them.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the French president and first lady were willing to travel to Delaware to appear in person for the trial. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Ms Owens systematically reaffirmed these falsehoods in response to each of our attorneys\u2019 repeated requests for a retraction, we ultimately concluded that referring the matter to a court of law was the only remaining avenue,\u201d the Macrons said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Owens said she would respond on her podcast on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cCandace Owens is not shutting up,\u201d the influencer\u2019s spokesperson added. \u201cThis is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist. Candace repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron. Instead of offering a comment, Brigitte is resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owens, who is married to George Farmer, the former boss of social media platform Parler<\/a>, has millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube and made her name as a conservative activist. <\/p>\n

\"CandaceCandace Owens made her name as a conservative activist and has millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube \u00a9 Lev Radin\/Pacific Press\/LightRocket\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The lawsuit says the Macrons have \u201csuffered substantial reputational damage\u201d and have spent \u201cconsiderable sums of money to correct the public record\u201d. <\/p>\n

The defamation case centres on Becoming Brigitte, an eight-part series that Owens released this year, and social media podcasts linked to it. In their filing, the Macrons say Owens has \u201cused [a] false statement\u201d about Brigitte\u2019s gender \u201cto promote her independent platform, gain notoriety and make money\u201d. They say she \u201cignored multiple attempts by the Macrons to engage\u201d. <\/p>\n

Becoming Brigitte has more than 2.3mn views on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cOwens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history \u2014 twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,\u201d the Macrons said in their filing. \u201cThe result is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theory about Brigitte Macron started in France in 2021, but has since been discussed by US media figures such as Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan.<\/p>\n

Initially the Macrons did not take action so as not to amplify what they have called \u201ctoxic\u201d rumours, but in 2022 Brigitte Macron filed a defamation lawsuit in France against a blogger and self-proclaimed clairvoyant who relayed the claims. She initially won the case, but it was overturned on appeal and she is now challenging that decision.<\/p>\n

\"CandaceOwens with her husband George Farmer, former boss of social media platform Parler \u00a9 James Devaney\/GC Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Last year, Emmanuel Macron reacted publicly for the first time, saying: \u201cThe worst thing is false information and fabricated scenarios, with people who end up believing them \u2014 including in \u200bthe \u200bmost private \u200baspects of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owens, 36, was once a staunch Trump supporter. She and Farmer, the son of the British life peer and former Conservative party treasurer Michael Farmer, married in 2019 at Trump\u2019s winery in Virginia. But the podcaster has since broken with the president and said she is \u201cembarrassed\u201d that she once campaigned for him. <\/p>\n

The Macrons\u2019 filing includes a description of the circumstances in which they met. The president was a 15-year-old student at a Jesuit high school in Amiens when he first encountered Brigitte, then a 39-year-old married teacher with three children. <\/p>\n

According to the filings, they \u201cformed a deeper intellectual connection\u201d when she directed a production of the 1971 Milan Kundera play Jacques and His Master in which Macron played the lead role, and later \u201cthe two began meeting regularly to collaborate\u201d on another play. <\/p>\n

Their relationship \u201cremained within the bounds of the law\u201d, the filings say. But when the teenager\u2019s parents found out about his \u201cstrong feelings for his teacher\u201d, they moved him to a different school. Before he left he told her that \u201cwhatever you do, I will marry you\u201d.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit says the Macrons wrote to Owens in December in a letter that \u201cpointedly denied that the president was statutorily raped\u201d. <\/p>\n

Owens mentioned in her series the idea that the French president was connected to MKUltra, a \u201csecret CIA programme that conducted human experiments to develop mind control techniques using drugs, psychological manipulation, and torture\u201d, or \u201ca similar government mind control programme\u201d, according to the document. <\/p>\n

It says: \u201cPresident Macron has not participated in, nor is he the product of, any government mind control programmes.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte have filed a US defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-330789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114999369745410281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}