Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against a right-wing US podcaster who claimed the spouse of the French president used to be a man.
The 218-page complaint against Candace Owens, who has millions of followers on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, was filed by the Macrons in the Delaware Superior Court and seeks a jury trial and unspecified punitive damages.
In a statement released by their lawyer, the Macrons said they filed the lawsuit after Owens repeatedly ignored requests to retract false and defamatory statements made on an eight-part YouTube and podcast series called "Becoming Brigitte".
"Owens' campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety," they said.
"We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused. It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all."
'Devastating lies'
The suit accuses Owens of using her popular podcast to spread "verifiably false and devastating lies" about the Macrons – including that Brigitte Macron was born a man, that they are blood relatives and that Emmanuel Macron was chosen to be France's president as part of a CIA-operated mind control programme.
"If ever there was a clear-cut case of defamation, this is it," Tom Clare, a lawyer for the Macrons, said in a statement.
"Owens both promoted and expanded on those falsehoods and invented new ones, all designed to cause maximum harm to the Macrons and maximise attention and financial gain for herself."
Brigitte Macron, 72, has also taken to the courts in France to combat claims she was born a man.
Brigitte Macron launches appeal against acquittal in gender rumours case
Two women were convicted in September last year of spreading false claims after they posted a YouTube video in December 2021 alleging that Brigitte Macron had once been a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux – who is actually her brother.
The ruling was overturned by a Paris appeals court and Macron appealed to the highest appeals court, the Court de Cassation, earlier this month.
(with AFP)
