I’m glad that Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are doing this. America has turned into a toxic cesspool of conspiracy theories. Some of that has spilled over to other countries. Candace Owens has taken it upon herself to claim that Brigitte Macron was born a man. It’s a ridiculous contention but hey, go ask Michelle Obama. She’s had the same lunacy spewed in her direction. It’s hard to know whether this is transgender hysteria or what exactly fueling this kind of ugly expression, but in all events, the Macrons have said “enough.”
The 218-page lawsuit, filed in Delaware on Wednesday, accuses Owens of publishing “outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions”, chief among them that Brigitte Macron was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux. Owens has also said the French president and his wife are blood relatives and that Emmanuel Macron is a product of a CIA human experiment or “a similar government mind control programme”, according to the Macrons’ court filing.
The suit is a rare case of a serving world leader personally suing an online influencer over their content, though it comes days after Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal and its parent companies over a report of a letter that the US president allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Macrons face a high legal bar, since US defamation laws require public figures to show “actual malice”, meaning that the person knew the information was false or had a reckless disregard for the truth. The Macrons are seeking a jury trial and punitive damages. “The principle here is truth,” the Macrons’ lawyer Thomas Clare, co-founder of defamation specialist firm Clare Locke, told the Financial Times. “They believe it’s important to stand up for themselves . . . Owens has had multiple opportunities to do the right thing and in response she has only mocked them.”
He said the French president and first lady were willing to travel to Delaware to appear in person for the trial. “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.
A spokesperson for Owens said she would respond on her podcast on Wednesday.
And of course Owens is relishing this because she’ll get a lot of juice out of it, publicity-wise. But the Macrons may well prevail and I hope that they do. Freedom of speech is one thing, repeated slander and libel is something else altogether. And frankly, I’m not so sure that the bar the Macrons face is that high. Owens has zero evidence about what she’s saying because none exists. That would tend to prove up malice and a reckless disregard for the truth, in my view.
We’ll see. But it is intriguing that it may take a non-American to actually challenge the vile fake news and right-wing hysteria in this country and prevail. This could be a legal landmark decision.
Nobody knows how soon this would go to trial but this could be one of the few good things to come out of the Trump era.
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