According to the content of the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of Delaware (US) on July 23, Mr. Macron and his wife believe that Candace Owens has carried out a " countless campaign" to spread false information about their private lives and honor, especially in the series of podcasts called "Becoming Brigitte" being broadcast on YouTube.
The plaintiff said the audits had made " veriitable to be untrue" statements, including Brigitte Macron's gender identity as male and being named after his brother Jean-Michel Trogneux. The French president and his wife accused Owens of dissolving their image, relationships and families to attract attention and increase the number of followers.
Candace Owens currently has more than 6.9 million followers on the X platform and more than 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
In a podcast broadcast on the same day, Owens said the lawsuit was part of a media strategy to distract public opinion and denied the allegations. Owens's representative also emphasized that this was an act of "threatening foreign government" against an independent content creator in the US.
However, according to the French president's lawyers, before the lawsuit, Mr. Macron had asked Owens to withdraw the related statements three times but had not received any positive feedback.
It is rare for an incumbent head of state to file a lawsuit in the US, especially in the context of defamation laws in this country that require plaintiffs who are public figures to prove that they are defendant in action with real intention - that is, knowing clearly that the information is false or despite the possibility of being false.
The case of President Macron and his wife has sparked debate about the relationship between the right to personal dignity and freedom of speech, especially as the content has spread strongly on global digital platforms.
Rumors surrounding Brigitte Macron's gender began to appear in 2021, initially in France and then spread to some extreme-right media outlets in the US.
In 2023, Brigitte won a lawsuit in a French court against two individuals who spread false information, but the verdict was later overturned by the appellate court and is now being appealed to a higher level.
According to the lawsuit, the French president and his wife affirmed that they acted to protect their family and end the spread of false information, not for political purposes or to affect press freedom.
