Washington (United States) (AFP) – Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron launched new defamation proceedings in the United States last week against influencer Candace Owens, whom they accuse of having disseminated and exploited false information according to which the French president's wife is a transgender person.

Published on: 10/11/2026 - 08:38

This legal action taken by the presidential couple in a federal court in Tennessee comes after a judge restricted the scope of their previous complaint at the end of October, launched in the summer of 2025 in Delaware.

The magistrate ruled that Candace Owens could not be held personally responsible because there was a statute of limitations, but had allowed the procedure to continue against her companies.

The new complaint, filed on November 4, targets her directly in her state of residence.

“The Macrons have in fact filed a new complaint against me,” she wrote on X on Monday.

In this new procedure, the presidential couple believes that Candace Owens “used this false information to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety and make money”.

Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron accuse him of having “persisted” since the initial complaint in the summer of 2025 and of having “amplified his lies” about them. “It is not a search for the truth, but a search for notoriety,” the complaint further attacks, listing some 88 cases in more than 400 pages.

“These lies have caused immense damage to the Macrons,” we can read on the court document, referring to a “campaign of international humiliation”.

This infox about Brigitte Macron, which has resurfaced regularly in France on social networks since her husband's first election in 2017, has flourished abroad, in particular in the United States, after the podcaster seized it in March 2024, giving it a global echo since January 2025 through a series of videos entitled "Becoming Brigitte".

According to this false information, widely relayed in France by movements combining conspiracists, covid-sceptics or the extreme right, Brigitte Macron, née Trogneux, would never have existed, but her brother Jean-Michel would have taken this identity after having transitioned.

The presidential couple is turning to the US court "to set the record straight, prevent further harm and hold Ms. Owens accountable for her conduct," according to the complaint.

© 2026 AFP

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