Why Brigitte Macron is so determined to fight the gender lies
Candace Owens, the right-wing American influencer, believes that images of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon were a hoax, that dinosaurs never existed and that science is a “pagan faith”.
She also believes that Brigitte Macron, the French first lady, is a man.
Her claims were initially greeted with shrugs in the Élysée Palace, where officials dismissed them as yet another of the absurd and baseless conspiracy theories that swirl around the outer edges of the internet. They assumed that only a handful of crackpots would buy into Owens’ notion that the Macrons — Brigitte in particular — belong to a “demonic” paedophile network secretly running the world.
They were wrong. The theory, which was first aired in France by Natacha Rey, a self-proclaimed “independent journalist”, in a four-hour YouTube interview with Delphine Jégousse, who describes herself as a medium, has gained international momentum since being promoted by Owens. Its seemingly unstoppable spread has prompted President Macron, 47, and his 72-year-old wife to take the highly unusual decision to file a defamation lawsuit against the influencer in the US. They are asking the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, where Owens’ business interests are based, to order her to pay “punitive damages” for “maliciously, wilfully, wantonly” spreading “demonstrably false statements”.
Their action flies in the face of the longstanding conventional wisdom that heads of state should feign indifference to the rumours that inevitably circle over them and their families. A public response could only make matters worse, or so the theory went.
• Macron: Why I had to sue US influencer Candace Owens
Presidential aides say that in an era of online conspiracy theories, the old approach no longer works. “In today’s context, you cannot let anything go and you have to launch legal proceedings,” Franck Louvrier, a former presidential press officer, told Le Figaro. “You have to get into the ring and defend yourself.”
In an interview with Paris Match this summer, Macron, who met his future wife when he was a pupil at the school where she taught, said much the same thing. “They advised us not to sue. But [the conspiracy theory] has taken on such magnitude in the United States that we had to act.” He said Owens’ lies were part of a wider “extreme right-wing” plan to discredit mainstream world leaders.
The Macrons arriving in Saarbrücken on Friday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of German Unification Day. They met President Steinmeier
HEIKO BECKER/REUTERS
Brigitte Macron, left, during her time as a teacher
But he also suggested that the lawsuit was driven by personal sentiment as much as political strategy. “It’s a question of defending my honour, “ he said. “This rumour about my wife is rubbish. We are talking about … the first lady of France, about a wife, a mother and a grandmother.”
Owens is known for voicing antisemitic tropes about supposed Jewish plots but also claims that dinosaurs were a “fake and gay” invention by “Antichrist” activists bent on imposing the theory of evolution.
In a series of podcasts entitled Becoming Brigitte, she turned her attention to the first lady with allegations that would be risible were she not followed by 7.2 million people on X and 5.21 million on YouTube.
Delphine Jégousse, a self-described medium whose real name is Amandine Roy, aired the conspiracies about Macron
The influencer claimed that Brigitte Macron was born Jean-Michel Trogneux — who is in fact the first lady’s brother — and went on to sexually abuse and groom the future president before undergoing a gender transition. The aim was to lever Macron into a position of power, where he could help paedophile conspirators to achieve world domination.
The Macrons’ lawsuit says that Owens has pursued “a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies”. It adds that she has twisted the truth “into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade. 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.”
• Has Candace Owens gone too far?
Thomas Huchon, a conspiracy theory specialist and the author of the book Résister aux Fake News (Resisting Fake News), said he was taken aback at the speed with which Owens’ claims gained ground. “From my experience and perspective as a specialist of fake stuff, I never before saw something of such magnitude that was so fake and so viral.”
He said the mixture of sex, power and secrets aired by Owens and her ilk were a “magical recipe” for conspiracy theorists. “It’s very dramatic because it shows how vulnerable we are. I would never have thought that some kind of weird scandal could hold French democracy in its hands.”
Huchon said that the Macrons were right to take legal action, but should have done so as soon as Owens began airing her theories. He also believes they should have sued her in France rather than the US. “In France, Owens would have had to prove that Brigitte Macron was a man. In the US, Brigitte Macron has to prove that she is a woman.”
Brigitte Macron with Hélène Mercier-Arnault, wife of Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, at the Louis Vuitton show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday
SWAN GALLET/GETTY IMAGES
The first lady has said she will supply “scientific evidence” to back her case, but legal experts nevertheless say the Macrons are far from certain of winning in a country where successful defamation suits are rare.
Some observers believe the Macrons would have been better off ignoring Owens.
Annie Chancel, a popular singer known by her stage name Sheila, who herself has had to put up with baseless rumours that she is a man, counselled the first lady against legal action. “She needs a thicker skin because unfortunately for her, it will never go away,” she said. “Rumours never go away. There will always be a thread.”
Sheila, 80, who said the rumours about her own gender had “spoilt my life and that of my parents”, noted that Brigitte Macron would need to prove she is a woman under the American proceedings. “Why should you have to prove anything, especially when you are called Brigitte Macron? I’m sorry, but don’t go to court.”
The French singer Annie Chancel, known as Sheila, has also faced conspiracies about her gender throughout her decades-long career
DAVID WOLFF/PATRICK/REDFERNS
Sheila in 1977
JAMES ANDANSON/SYGMA/GETTY IMAGES
The Macrons have already made one attempt to quash the rumour. They took action in France against Rey and Jégousse for voicing the theory and last year, a lower court upheld the lawsuit and ordered the two conspiracy theorists to pay €8,000 (£7,000) in damages to Brigitte Macron and €5,000 to her brother.
This summer, however, an appeal court overturned the ruling, judging that although the theories contained “incoherences and weaknesses”, it was not libellous to suggest that someone had secretly transitioned.
Brigitte Macron said she would take the case to the Cour de Cassation, France’s supreme court. In the meantime, however, conspiracy theorists on both sides of the Atlantic are claiming — wrongly — that the verdict backs their beliefs.