France's first couple sue Candace Owens for defamation over claims that Brigitte Macron is a man

PARIS — A lawyer for France 's first couple said they'll be seeking "substantial" damages from U.S. conservative influencer Candace Owens if she persists with claims that President Emmanuel Macron 's wife, Brigitte, is a man. The lawyer, Tom Clare, said in an interview with CNN that a defamation suit filed Wednesday for the Macrons in a Delaware court was "really a last resort" after a fruitless yearlong effort to engage with Owens and requests that she "do the right thing: tell the truth, stop spreading these lies." "Each time we've done that, she mocked the Macrons, she mocked our efforts to set the record straight," Clare said. "Enough is enough, it was time to hold her accountable." The Macrons have been married since 2007, and Emmanuel Macron has been France's president since 2017. In a YouTube video, Owens called the video an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy," and said the first lady is "a very goofy man." Owens is a right-leaning political commentator whose YouTube channel has about 4.5 million subscribers. In 2024, she was denied a visa from New Zealand and Australia, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II. The 219-page complaint against Owens lays out "extensive evidence" that Brigitte Macron "was born a woman, she's always been a woman," the couple's attorney said. "We'll put forward our damage claim at trial, but if she continues to double down between now and the time of trial, it will be a substantial award," he said. In Paris, the presidential office had no immediate comment. In France, too, the presidential couple has for years been dogged by conspiracy theories that Brigitte was born as a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who supposedly then took the name Brigitte as a transgender woman. Jean-Michel Trogneux is, in fact, Brigitte's brother. Last September, Brigitte and Jean-Michel Trogneux won a defamation suit against two women who were sentenced by a Paris court to fines and damages for spreading the claims about the first lady online. A Paris appeals court overturned the ruling earlier this month. Brigitte and her brother have since turned to France's highest court to appeal that decision, according to French media. The Macrons first met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. Brigitte Macron was then Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children. Macron, 47, is serving his second and last term as president. The first lady celebrated her 72nd birthday in April. Macron moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally married. Their relationship came under the spotlight in May when video images showed Brigitte pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from a plane on a tour of Southeast Asia. Macron later dismissed the incident as play-fighting, telling reporters that "we are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife," and that it had been overblown into "a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe."