Why is American right-wing commentator Candace Owens so obsessive about French President Emmanuel Macron and his spouse, Brigitte?
“I’m disgusted by your relationship,” Owens mentioned in January, after the Macrons requested her to cease accusing the French first girl of being a transgender lady. “You make me sick, Brigitte.”
Certain, in our patriarchal world, it’s uncommon for a spouse to be 24 years older than her husband. However President Trump can also be 24 years older than his spouse, Melania.
So, critically, what’s the massive whoop?
One reply will be discovered within the 219-page defamation lawsuit filed Wednesday in opposition to Owens by the Macrons in Delaware Superior Courtroom. In exhaustive element, the lawsuit lays out the preposterous claims made by Owens in regards to the French first couple, subjecting them to “a marketing campaign of worldwide humiliation.”
The regulation agency representing the Macrons, Clare Locke, is similar outfit that gained an enormous settlement in opposition to Fox Information for defaming Dominion Voting Methods within the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Because the lawsuit recounts, in March 2024, Owens was dismissed by Ben Shapiro’s Every day Wire media operation after making a collection of antisemitic feedback, together with repeating the “blood libel” that Jews drink the blood of Christian infants.
In June 2024, she launched her newly unbiased YouTube channel and, in response to the Macron lawsuit, was hungry for consideration and “trying to find a salacious conspiracy idea to extend viewership.”
At one level on X, she described her wackadoodle claims in regards to the Macrons because the “greatest scandal that has ever occurred in politics in human historical past.”
Oh, I dunno. So far as political scandals go, I believe actual ones like Watergate, Iran-Contra and the Jan. 6 rebellion had been a teensy bit extra impactful than a fantasy a couple of first girl’s intercourse change.
So how, precisely, did Owens land on a conspiracy idea centered on the French president and first girl?
In line with the Macron lawsuit, in September 2019, Owens turned concerned in French far-right politics after she was invited to be the keynote speaker on the Conference de la Droite (Conference of the Proper) in Paris.
Her 15-minute speech was the same old Stephen Miller-esque litany of complaints acquainted to Christian nationalists: immigrants, political correctness, secularism and, after all, the “faux information media” are ruining America.
She made spectacularly asinine assertions about police killings of unarmed Black males, claiming that in 2016, “solely” 16 unarmed Black males had been slain by police and that Black males had the next likelihood of being struck by lightning than killed by cops.
She additionally endeared herself to her viewers when she accused Macron of being a weak chief and, horrors, a “globalist.”
In any case, it appears that evidently accusing high-profile ladies of being a transgender has develop into modern on the transphobic far proper.
As chances are you’ll recall, a few of this nation’s most heinous conspiracy theorists have leveled the identical weird cost in opposition to Michelle Obama, whose husband, the Hawaii-born former President Obama, was repeatedly accused by Trump of not being born within the U.S. These outlandish accusations spring from the impulse to inflict as a lot political injury as doable.
In early 2025, Owens launched an eight-part collection on her YouTube channel known as “Changing into Brigitte.” In it, she claimed the French president is homosexual. That his relationship with Brigitte is incestuous. That they have interaction in pedophilia and worship a satanic idol known as Baphomet.
She has cited a 2021 Every day Mail story as her supply, when actually that piece was an entire debunking of the very conspiracy theories she was selling.
The Every day Mail traced the origin of the conspiracy idea to a chunk revealed two months earlier in a French far-right publication, Faits et Paperwork (Info and Paperwork). The allegations, in response to the Every day Mail, had been an try to break the 2022 reelection prospects of Macron, who confronted two right-wing opponents. Fait et Paperwork claimed no childhood images of Brigitte Macron might be discovered. However, because the Every day Mail — and the Macron lawsuit — notice, there’s a newspaper announcement of her 1953 start, photographs of her taking communion at 7, and photographs of her first wedding ceremony.
How seemingly are the French first couple to prevail in a defamation lawsuit?
The usual of proof in American courts, particularly for individuals as well-known as they’re, could be very, very excessive. The Macrons should show that Owens acted with “precise malice,” that she knew what she was saying is fake and mentioned it anyway, or that she acted with reckless disregard for whether or not it was true or not.
The Macrons, in response to their lawsuit, despatched her three separate retraction calls for, explicitly stating that her claims had been false, and included proof resembling start data, marriage data and images. They’ve requested for a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Owens has remained defiant, claiming to her practically 4.5 million YouTube subscribers that the Macrons try to silence her, and that their lawsuit is proof that her allegations are right. “I’m totally ready to tackle this battle,” Owens mentioned. “On behalf of your entire world, I’ll see you in courtroom.”
Personally, I believe she needs to be nervous.
Robert Barnes, the right-wing legal professional who defended the loony conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, agrees.
“Owens advised a number of the dumbest, apparent lies one can inform,” Barnes wrote Thursday on X. “She has 0% likelihood of successful in courtroom.”
I can hardly wait.
Bluesky: @rabcarian
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