French President Sues Candace Owens For Defamation Over Trans Claims
Image: Pool AP; Candace Owens/Facebook
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife Brigitte are suing far-right political commentator Candace Owens for defamation over false claims that the president’s wife is trans.
The 218-page complaint, filed on Wednesday in the Delaware Superior Court, accuses Owens of making “demonstrably false” claims to “garner attention and notoriety”, and subjecting the couple to “a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies”.
The 22-count complaint is seeking damages against Owens and her companies, including punitive damages.
Owens released an eight-part series on YouTube Becoming Brigitte, in which she claimed Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the name of her actual brother. Owens also claimed the Macrons are blood relatives and that Emmanuel Macron is the result of a CIA human experimentation program similar toMKUltra. The series garnered more than 2.3 million views.
“Because Ms Owens systematically reaffirmed these falsehoods in response to each of our attorneys’ repeated requests for a retraction, we ultimately concluded that referring the matter to a court of law was the only remaining avenue,” the Macrons said in a statement.
“Ms Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety. We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused. It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all.”
The lawsuit also details “considerable sums of money” the Macrons have spent “to correct the public record”, including on legal counsel.
“Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history — twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,” the document states.
“The result is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale. Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications. It is invasive, dehumanising, and deeply unjust.”
As reported by the Financial Times, the Macrons are willing to appear in court in Delaware for a trial. They are represented by law firm Clare Locke, which has won major defamation cases including the lawsuit between voting equipment company, Dominion, against Fox News.
Culture of transvestigations “deeply misogynistic”
Owens responded to the lawsuit with an hour long YouTube livestream on Wednesday.
“The life of Candace Owens works like this,” she said. “I wake up, I stretch, I have a cup of coffee, and then I am served with a lawsuit.
“I think that’s the morning routine my friends, that is clearly my morning routine. It is so effortless. And today, I have been sued by the first ladyman of France.”
A spokesperson for Owens has claimed that the lawsuit is “a foreign government attacking the first amendment rights of an American independent journalist”, and has said she will not be “shutting up”.
“Candace repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron. Instead of offering a comment, Brigitte is resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission. In France, politicians can bully journalists, but this is not France. It’s America.”
In September, a French court awarded the first lady nearly $9,000 in damages after two women claimed she was a biological male. The decision was later overturned, with Macron making an appeal earlier this month.
Dubbed “tranvestigations“, these campaigns generally target celebrities and other high-profile figures, relying on phrenology-like ‘evidence’, in which physical features are heavily scrutinised as either male or female.
GLAAD notes the movement began around 2017, and initially targeted Black women including Michelle Obama and Serena Williams, accusing them of secretly being men in a deeply racist and transphobic attempt to discredit their achievements.
A 2021 report from the Wilson Center called the phenomenon, “deeply misogynistic”.
“These narratives tap into the trope of the duplicitous woman, implying that not only are transgender individuals inherently deceptive, but that this deception is responsible for the power and influence that these women hold,” it detailed.
