Why is the French president suing Candace Owens?

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0:38There's a conspiracy theory that's been kicking around in far-right spaces in France for a few years now. It's about the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte. Specifically, that Brigitte was born a man and has been hiding her identity for decades. Now, I've lived in Paris for a long time, and I used to cover French politics. And I should say that as far as I'm aware, there is zero evidence that supports this theory. And actually, I find it quite cruel. When I was reporting from Paris, I never paid any attention to it. And I'd sort of roll my eyes whenever it would come up.

1:15In the last year, though, it's been picked up by the right-wing podcaster Candace Owens.

1:21Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:The biggest political scandal ever. and no, I am not being dramatic. If what is happening right now in France is real, and I can tell you right now, I firmly believe that it is, then barring political assassinations, this is potentially the biggest political scandal that has ever happened in the history of the world. Candace Owens, I love you, but I think this is too crazy. And it's punched in to the conservative mainstream. And then it turns out she's right. Yeah. What? My mind is blown. Now, the French president and his wife Brigitte are suing Candace Owens in Delaware. The defamation suit which was filed last week in Delaware claims that Owens has engaged in a quote, relentless and unjustified smear campaign, unquote.

2:05Their claim accuses Owens of publishing a conspiracy theory which they say has caused them tremendous damage by subjecting them to global humiliation. The French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife are planning to present photographic and scientific evidence to a U.S. court to prove that Brigitte Macron is a woman. Opening them up to a massive showdown that in the court of public perception is perhaps impossible to win.

2:32Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I am fully prepared to take on this battle. On behalf of the entire world, I will see you in court. From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman. And today on The Global Story, where did this conspiracy come from? And why are the Macrons risking so much to take down Candice Owens?

2:59So, Candice, let me tell you, OK, I'm just minding my business, all right? I'm in the studio with my colleague Anushka Mutanda-Dowarty. For the last year, she's become the BBC's expert in celebrity trials. She's covered Justin Baldoni versus Blake Lively. she covered Sean Combs for the BBC's podcast Diddy on Trial. But before covering the Brigitte Macron lawsuit, Anoushka came across the story the way most people did.

3:26Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I'm on social media all the time. Like, I'm in this space. I have to be tuned into this because this is where these stories play out. And you can't really shock me. You can't really stop somebody in their tracks, especially people who've been native to the social media space all their life, right? I was on Instagram since the age of 11, since it started. was scrolling on TikTok. And Candace Owens pops up. So I'm going to tell you a true story, and it is wild. And I know that if you are... And I know Candace Owens. She's existed in this kind of right-wing space. She's an African-American female conservative.

3:58Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:She's a great talker. She's very authoritative. She knows how to work a social media platform. And I hear the words come out of her mouth. Brigitte Macron was actually born a man. Brigitte Macron is a man. And she lived as a man until she was 30 years old. And she also groomed Emmanuel Macron when he was a little boy, when she was still a man. And perhaps they are also related. And I thought, now that's new. I haven't heard that one before.

4:32Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:This post that I saw had 15 million views on TikTok. And it had been existing for a while. That's the first time I saw this was about a year ago. This theory has existed for a while. She didn't originate it.

4:48The theory was originally conceived by a couple of self-described journalists in France in 2021. And it was then popularised on a long, rambling, obscure podcast on YouTube. It's just two women talking, the sound keeps dropping out, it's completely shambolic. One woman is the so-called journalist who came up with the theory. And the other, a self-described clairvoyant. Now, the podcasters say that the current Brigitte Macron was actually born as her brother, a man called Jean-Michel Tronieu. And at some point, the original Brigitte actually disappeared or died. And that's when Jean-Michel Tronieu, they say, stole the identity of his sister, Brigitte.

5:42and then that person went on to become Brigitte Macron.

5:49This theory ignores the fact that Jean-Michel Trognu is still very much alive and well and he's been seen in videos at the Élysée Palace along with his sister, Brigitte Macron. But that inconvenient fact doesn't seem to matter and this obscure, scratchy French podcast gains a little attention. But the theory really picks up when Brigitte Macron decides to take legal action. She and her very much alive brother sue the podcasters for defamation in France. And the whole saga ends up in the Daily Mail newspaper.

6:26Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I was alerted to it by the Daily Mail. I thought it was such a crazy, insane headline. And that's where Candace Owens comes across the story. The Daily Mail had published an article saying that with a video of Emmanuel Macron denying claims his wife was a man. And I just thought that's really funny. Like, what could possibly be going on in France? that the president has to deny a claim that his wife's a man. Candace Owens will go on to take this theory and make a kind of industry out of it. Candace Owens is now the main mouthpiece for disseminating this theory. But before we get into that, I think it's worth understanding how she got here, how she became known for her outlandish far-right conspiracies.

7:04Can you tell me how she came into this space and became as big as she is?

7:10Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, so Candice didn't start off in this space at all. This is actually quite foreign to where she began. She interned at Vogue when she was younger, then she worked in the finance sector, and then she started a PR agency, and on there she posted anti-Trump content. In this first part of her career, she's actually a liberal. She was outspoken, and she got caught up in an online controversy that turned the left against her. Candice said that from that she started to receive hate. She said racial abuse as well from people on the left. And then that was like a rallying cry to right wing voices, big right wing voices who were like, well, you think that you're so woke, but actually you're racially abusing this person.

7:51Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And this is where the shift begins. I mean, Candace actually famously says, I became a conservative overnight. Just to make sure I understand this. So was she in some respects kind of cancelled on the left? It's interesting because she says she was cancelled on the left and she says a lot of the hate was coming from the left. But she did receive criticism like across the board. But she decided these people are attacking me and I'm getting racist abuse. And then she starts, she flip flops. And this here is where the criticism begins of Candice, that when Candice is struggling, Candice switches up and she doesn't stick to her beliefs.

8:26Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And she flip flops back and forward and she goes where she's welcome. And that is the beginning of that critique. And that becomes a through line critique of her whole career, which we'll get into. Okay, so she becomes a kind of right-wing what? Well, I don't want to say a darling of the right-wing, but she becomes more aligned with right-wing views. And then we have 2016, she starts to show a lot more support for Trump. And this is where you start to see some of the clips of her that start to go viral. She is a great talker. And like we've said before, an African-American woman with Trump's right, she gets booked for shows.

8:59Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:People want to talk to her. She has a unique and interesting point of view. And then in 2019, she does Blegxit, the black exit from the Democratic Party, which I think is the worst version of the exit thing that we've had. Brexit and Megxit were far better than that. Blegxit is just not catchy. You can't really understand what it is that she's trying to say with that one. Yeah, you're just like, what? Okay. And this is when we start to see her aligning with Kanye as well, because he's espousing the same views. Obviously, Kanye then starts to take things one step further with the White Lives Matter t-shirts and Candace joins him and she triples her followers overnight.

9:36Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So then her base of support doesn't just become more vocal, it becomes more devoted. So she starts working for The Daily Wire in 2021, which is a conservative media outlet founded by Ben Shapiro. and she gets a pretty big platform on there. I mean, she gets her own podcast, a Candace podcast. This is crazy. I'm talking crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. In about March of 2024, she repeats some of these claims that have been made about Brigitte Macron. This is the first photo. This is allegedly Brigitte Macron when she was a little girl. I saw this photo. I was like, that actually looks like she might actually be the guy.

10:14Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Maybe she's a dead ringer for her brother. But I don't see any resemblance there with the little girl. But this is where we first see her pick up on it. And then this gains so much traction. I mean, it's so important that I'm not just going to ask you guys to watch this, but to also share it. By the time Candace Owens starts spreading this theory, her relationship has begun to sour with the Daily Wire's Jewish co-founder, Ben Shapiro. There are allegations of anti-Semitism against her, which she denies and is called smears. And she and Shapiro have taken to clashing on social media over their opposing views on Israel and Gaza.

10:50And then in March 2024, they split ways.

10:53Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So she leaves the Daily Wire. She's basically left without a substantial platform and certainly without the backing of a coordinated media outlet. So it's now up to Candace. What's Candace going to do? And so she knows she's got this absolute cracker that just garners social engagement like nothing before, this Brigitte Macron conspiracy theory. So she takes that and she pretty much uses this to launch her own podcast. All right, guys, happy Monday. And it looks like people are listening to our private conversations again. And this is perfect springboard for her to just bounce into the millions and millions of views almost immediately as she starts.

11:33Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, I'm pretty sure him and his husband, Brigitte, are going to come for my life. Which then also she starts to profit off. Then we start to see her picking up on already existing conspiracy theories and tying them into this whirlpool of what's going on, she alleges, with the Macrons. They believe in incest. They believe in pedophilia. They practice these things as sacraments. An underground pedophile cult ring. They have sexual rituals. I have showed you proof of that on this show. Then comes the satanic worship. I am referring to a small group of oligarchs who are running the world who worship Baphomet, okay?

12:13Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:They believe in transgenderism. It's the horned goat god who's supposed to be a hermaphrodite as well. The elites have always practiced these sexual rituals. They've always believed in this. And then you tie that into this anti-establishment. You can't trust people. Now Emmanuel and Brigitte want to see if they can extend their globalist tentacles to the United States, right? You start to see how she wraps this conspiracy theory in another one. It taps into some very familiar fears about the power of the establishment, the powers of the mainstream media and not believing what you're being told.

12:48Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:They're constantly trying to convince you not to trust your gut, constantly trying to convince you that trusting your gut in and of itself is a conspiracy. Your gut is not a conspiracy. Not only is she, you know, repeating this theory as fact, saying she's going to stake her career on it, she's now also selling merchandise. They just launched a new store for my show. It's packed with awesome Candace Owens merch. Brigitte Macron merchandise. Yeah. Time magazine, man of the year, with Brigitte's face on a T-shirt. Sold out.

13:22So there is this thing that members of the Global Story team have been telling me about that was not on my radar at all. And it is called transvestigations. Now, as far as I understand it, these are people who, online people, who accuse prominent women, often women on the political left, of being men and then say that they are investigating their true gender. Have you seen it before as a thing online?

13:51Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I saw with Michelle Obama and they call her Michael Obama. And I'd seen it with Lady Gaga and I've seen it said about Serena Williams as well. So I do want to make the distinction with Michelle Obama and like Serena Williams that there is another racial element in there where black women, particularly dark skinned women, their femininity is completely reduced by the media as an easier way to then attack them. So there's that kind of added context on that. But I think it's an easy way to disqualify somebody. What you're doing is calling somebody a liar. And you're saying that somebody is dishonest, who's been put in a position where honesty is really rather a requirement of the job.

14:31Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So we need to keep our eyes on you. And we need to discredit what you say. So I think it's more about that. But I think part of the accusation is that, yes, Candace happened upon this theory about the Macrons and it very conveniently had the trans element in it. Knowing this is a buzzword, it's even more enticing to jump on because you know, God, this is what everybody's talking about. I know this is going to rile people up and that's part of what the Macrons are alleging. Coming up, the Macrons take Candace to court and in doing so, bring more attention to the whole thing.

15:16Hi there, I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redmond. And together we're the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. For those of you who might be new to our show, we here at the Global Story dive deep every weekday on one big story at the intersection of where the world and America meet. And you can now watch The Global Story on the iHeart app. Catch every brand new episode every weekday. Just tap into iHeart to start watching. And we hope you enjoy the show.

15:50So at this point, it's all getting a little bit out of control. Does anyone actually try and stop her on this kind of wild train ride that she's on?

15:59Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Well, if you take Candace's word, she says that President Donald Trump calls her up after receiving an in-person visit from Emmanuel Macron. President Donald J. Trump, he is calling me. And in true President Trump fashion, he jumps right into the narrative. Emmanuel Macron comes to the U.S., he meets with Trump, and she claims not even an hour after Macron leaves, she receives a phone call from somebody close to the president and then it turns out to be the president saying, can you stop repeating these things? I've just had this meeting. It's awkward, etc. He tells me, you know, she's old and this is really, really impacting her.

16:39Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And then he said, you know, I saw her, you know, I saw her up close and she looks like a woman to me. Now that's Candace's version of events. Trump hasn't come out and confirmed or denied that he that. Emmanuel Macron hasn't come out and confirmed or denied that he went over and spoke to Donald Trump. But she's used that phone call as a springboard to be like, clearly what I'm saying is correct and it's getting under their skin. They did that because they are terrified. They are terrified because obviously everything I've uncovered is true. Nothing seems to be deterring her at this point. Everything just adds into like, we're going to talk about this on next week's episode.

17:18Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And she's getting tons of views. We're to the millions now regularly, but she gets picked up upon by already established big platforms. Candace Owens, I love you, but I think this is too crazy. Yeah. And then it turns out she's right. Yeah. What is, so, can you just explain? My mind is blown. It's picked up by some of the world's most popular podcasters, like Tucker Carlson. She comes out and she's like, I will wager my professional credibility on the claim that Macron's wife is actually a man. And Joe Rogan. I'm pretty sure she's right. I don't know. I might be wrong. I think she's right. The whole thing stinks.

18:00Bringing the theory to millions more people and into the mainstream.

18:04Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Her name is in the conversation and it builds and it builds and it builds and she has momentum. While Candice was busy building her own podcast, The defamation case in France was developing. Remember, Brigitte Macron and her brother sued the original French podcasters for defamation. And initially, she won. And she and her brother were awarded damages. But earlier this year, the Macrons were dealt a major blow. The verdict was overturned in the appeals court in Paris. Happy Thursday, everybody. We won. We won. Which, of course, Candice covers on her show. I'd like to shout out especially all my haters here right at the top who didn't believe me when I was all like Brigitte Macron is a man.

18:49Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And instead they decided to go with the mainstream media. To be clear, Candice isn't involved in the French case at all. And the case itself isn't actually about whether Brigitte Macron is a man or a woman. It's about whether these podcasters defamed her. But I think it's very tricky here because you have to make the distinction between defamation versus validity of the statement. So it's have they been defamed? And can you prove that these people maliciously acted to defame the Macrons rather than we are examining the validity of the claims? If you just glance over it, it does seem like, oh, well, they threw it out.

19:26Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Well, that's a loss for the Macrons and a win for people who have this theory. Because guess what? Brigitte Macron is a man, was born a man. And so therefore she will die a man. And then we get this lawsuit filed by the Macrons. It's filed in Delaware. So it's filed in the United States. It's filed where Candace's podcast parent company is registered. Okay. Because they're not just suing Candace individually. They're suing the Candace podcast for defamation as well. And this is, once again, another thing that Candace goes, bombshell. Never before in human history has a head of state, has a world leader, has anybody gone after a podcaster.

20:11Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And that's what she says. OK, so what does a lawsuit actually say? In the US, there's a really high bar for defamation, and it's even higher if you're public figures, because there is the assumption that because you're in a position of power and you're highly visible, that people are going to have opinions on you. And that's part of their First Amendment rights to voice those opinions, whether they're negative or whether they're positive. You have to prove something called actual malice. So what the lawsuit does is it walks you through the different times that the Macron's council have contacted Candace Owens and her company with a letter saying, here's this piece of information, here's this picture, here's this proof that Brigitte Macron is who she purports to be, that she was born Brigitte Macron, that she lived as Brigitte Macron.