Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron have had enough. After a series of libelous and slanderous comments by Candace Owens, the Macrons have filed a defamation lawsuit. The over 200 page filing starts:
In March 2024, Candace Owens, a right-wing podcaster, told the worldshe “would stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron [the First Lady of France] is in fact a man.”
The suit accuses Owens of profiting off “outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions” including that:
- Brigitte Macron was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux
- Emmanuel and Brigitte are blood relatives
- Emmanuel Macron is a product of a CIA human experiment or “a similar government mind control programme”, according to the Macrons’ court filing.
To be clear, this was not a one-off event nor an ‘oh by the way’ set of comments
The French couple singled out Owens’ six-part video series “Becoming Brigitte,” in which Owens claimed Brigitte was born a man and stole a French person’s identity—using the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the name of her brother—before she transitioned.
This is evidently a quite serious move, with the Macrons having hired a top-notch firm and having invested in the legal fees for that 200 page filing.
After so many years of serial defamation and ever-escalating falsehoods from RWBM (right-wing bullshit machine) influencers and Republican elite (like Trump), here is finally a power move to test whether U.S. defamation law’s (in so many ways) requiring public figures to show “actual malice” enables holding the RWBM’s profiteers and propagandists to account for their seemingly endless (and often outright lunatic and vicious) falsehoods.
The Macrons have made clear a willingness to travel to Delaware (if the Trump Administration will let them) for the trial.
Owens certainly dug the hole deeper as the Macrons’ legal team evidently gave her multiple opportunities to recant her libelous and slanderous falsheoods.
“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.
Based perhaps on the “when they go low, we go high” philosophy, the Obamas stoically (almost certainly with meaningful pain) withstood unceasing libels and slanders from the RWBM, too many reminiscent of the attacks on the Macrons (such as the disgusting lies, believed and repeated throughout the RWBM’s (criminally) gullible audiences, that Michelle Obama is a man and their daughters adopted). The Obamas stoically withstood and didn’t cause pain, such as through lawsuits, to the RWBM influencers and entities profiting off these ugly attacks. Perhaps Democratic politicians will take a lesson from the Macrons and realize that: when the RWBM goes low, its time to get even — in the court of public opinion, at the ballot box, and in court.
