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France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, filed a defamation lawsuit in the United States on Wednesday against right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading false rumours that the first lady is a man.
In the suit filed in the Delaware Superior Court, the Macrons said Owens had waged a “campaign of global humiliation” and “relentless bullying” for personal gain to promote her podcast.
The Macrons said one of the lies repeated by Owens includes that Brigitte Macron was born Jean-Michel Trogneux, which is the name of her brother.
It also accuses Owens of falsely claiming that Emmanuel Macron was installed as president of France as part of a secret CIA plot.
“These outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions included that Mrs Macron was born a man, stole another person’s identity, and transitioned to become Brigitte; Mrs Macron and President Macron are blood relatives committing incest; President Macron was chosen to be the President of France as part of the CIA-operated MKUltra program or a similar mind-control program; and Mrs Macron and President Macron are committing forgery, fraud, and abuses of power to conceal these secrets,” the lawsuit says.
The 22-count complaint is also seeking unspecified damages.
The suit is a rare instance of a world leader suing for defamation. US President Donald Trump has filed multiple defamation lawsuits, including one last week against The Wall Street Journal.
To win a defamation case in the US, public figures like the Macrons must be able to show that defendants engaged in “actual malice,” meaning they knew that comments they had published were false.
Neither Owens nor the Macrons have commented on the lawsuit.
This is not the first time Brigitte Macron has sued for defamation over claims she was born male.
In 2021, she filed suit against two women, Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey, for spreading the transgender rumours online which subsequently went viral.
A lower court ordered both women to pay damages to both Macron and her brother, but that case ended up back in the headlines earlier this year after Macron took the case to the country’s highest appeals court after the Paris appeals court overturned the conviction.
