Macrons to offer ‘photographic evidence’ to prove Brigitte is a woman

Emmanuel Macron and his wife will present photographic and scientific evidence to an American court to prove France’s first lady is a woman, their lawyer has said.

The Macrons will present the evidence in a defamation suit they have brought against Candace Owens, the right-wing “MAGA” influencer who has repeatedly insisted that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman.

Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are challenging the claims of right-wing US podcaster Candace Owens that Brigitte was born a man.Credit: AP

Tom Clare, the couple’s lawyer, said that Brigitte Macron, 72, had found Owens’s accusations “incredibly upsetting” and they were a “distraction” to her husband’s career.

Clare said on the BBC’s Fame Under Fire podcast: “We’re prepared to demonstrate fully, both generically and specifically, that what she’s saying about Brigitte Macron is false.”

He added: “It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself, to put this type of proof forward.

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“It is a process that she will have to subject herself to in a very public way. But she’s willing to do it. She is firmly resolved to do what it takes to set the record straight.”

When asked if the Macrons would be supplying pictures of Brigitte pregnant and raising her children, Clare said they existed and would be presented in court.

Owens, a 36-year-old newspaper columnist turned MAGA social media conspiracy theorist, said last year that she would stake her “entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is, in fact, a man” and has since doubled down on the baseless allegation, including in her own podcast series.

She has frequently claimed that Brigitte was born male with the name Jean-Michel Trogneux and then “groomed” Emmanuel Macron as a teenager before transitioning to live as a woman.

Brigitte is 24 years older than her husband, whom she met while teaching at his high school. She has three children from a former marriage and seven grandchildren.

The Macrons filed a suit in July alleging that Owens had made continued defamatory attacks against the couple in order to “promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money”.

The suit also states that Trogneux is Brigitte’s older brother, who lives in northern France and attended Macron’s presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.

It also accuses the US podcaster of falsely alleging Macron and his wife are blood relatives and that the president was installed in office by a secret CIA plot.

Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron attend a Bastille Day ceremony in Paris in 2015.Credit: AP

Clare said that the Macrons would also testify, adding that the process was “incredibly intrusive for this family” but would demonstrate “how confident they are in their ability to prove it is false in an open forum.”

The conspiracy theory first went viral on social media in 2021 and grew in prominence after a YouTube video made by French bloggers Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey.

The Macrons won a defamation lawsuit in France against the two bloggers, but this has since been overturned after an appeals court ruled it did not fit the legal definition of defamation.

They have appealed against the decision.

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‘I will see you in court’

In their lawsuit against Owens, the Macrons claim she “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers”.

Under American law, the Macrons will have to prove that Owens knowingly spread false information, which is known as “actual malice”.

In August, the president said that he and his wife “had to” sue Owens in order to “have the truth respected”.

Macron said: “This is about defending my honour. Because this is nonsense. This is someone who knew full well that she had false information and did so with the aim of causing harm, in the service of an ideology and with established connections to far-right leaders.”

Responding to the lawsuit in July, Owens called it a “catastrophic PR strategy” and recommended Macron “fire everyone around you who said this was a very good idea”.

“On behalf of the entire world, I will see you in court,” she said.

Owens’ lawyers have applied to get the case thrown out, arguing that it should not have been filed in Delaware.

The Telegraph, London

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