By Marianka Swain

Copyright independent

This comes as part of a defamation suit that the Macrons filed in July against far-right American commentator Candace Owens, who has been fanning the flames of a bizarre conspiracy theory that Mrs Macron was actually born male and has been hiding her transgender status from the world.

The Macrons’ lawyer, Tom Clare, said yesterday that the couple will present “expert testimony” that is “scientific in nature”. He added: “It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself; to put this type of proof forward.” But Mrs Macron, he noted, “is firmly resolved to do what it takes to set the record straight”.

The Macrons’ legal filing against Ms Owens alleges that she “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers”.

Ms Owens is one of the most prominent proponents of this outlandish rumour about Mrs Macron’s gender status. Fellow conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, who supercharged the gossip after claiming it was true in a video posted on YouTube this March, is another.

Rising social media star Ms Owens first latched on to the scurrilous rumour in 2024, posting a video titled Is France’s first lady a man? to her YouTube channel. Promoting it on X, Ms Owens wrote: “Stop everything and watch this! Not a joke or an exaggeration to say that barring political assassinations, this is likely the biggest scandal that has ever happened in politics in human history.”

Since then, the story has become a popular topic in the corners of the internet frequented by followers of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

In her March 2024 video (since deleted), Ms Owens referred to the likely original source of the salacious story: a 2021 article in right-wing French journal Faits et Documents, which made the jaw-dropping claim that Mrs Macron (71) and her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux were actually the same person. The story posited that Jean-Michel doesn’t actually exist – Mrs Macron herself was born Jean-Michel, then transitioned from male to female at the age of 30.

“I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Ms Owens said in a follow-up post on X. “Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment.”

Today’s News in 90 Seconds – September 19th

The video, in Ms Owens’s words, “blew up”, which perhaps explains why this became her pet topic. She has since treated her 4.07 million YouTube subscribers to numerous posts about the French first lady, including a video series called Becoming Brigitte.

Mrs Macron has not provided definitive proof that she is a woman, therefore, she must be a man

Then, in a January 2025 video titled I Got A Legal Threat From A Sitting President…, Owens revealed that she was contacted by a law firm representing the Macrons themselves. She shared a section of that letter, which reads: “This disinformation campaign is almost entirely based on a negative − Mrs Macron has not provided definitive proof that she is a woman, therefore, she must be a man.”

The letter argues that Mrs Macron does not owe Ms Owens proof − “frankly, it is none of your business” − and claims that Ms Owens is being “defamatory”.

But getting the attention of France’s first family has only fuelled Owens’s campaign. In February, she posted a video interview with French journalist Xavier Poussard, editor of Faits et Documents and author of the book Devenir Brigitte, which subsequently shot to the top of the Amazon charts. That video has clocked up 2.6 million views to date.

It’s exactly the outcome Mr Poussard was hoping for, according to Emmanuelle Anizon, a journalist at French weekly Le Nouvel Obs and the author of a book about the conspiracy, called L’affaire Madame − Anatomie d’une fake news. She told Agence France-Presse last year that Mr Poussard started translating his articles about Mrs Macron into English in 2023 and sent them to associates of Donald Trump. It was his dream, Ms Anizon added, “to export this rumour across the Atlantic”.

The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios. People eventually believe them and disturb you

The theory had initially just been a home-grown obsession. Self-described journalist Natacha Rey amplified the Faits et Documents story in December 2021 via a four-hour YouTube video in which she was interviewed by spiritual medium Amandine Roy, and called Mrs Macron’s identity a “state lie”. She claimed that Mrs Macron’s first husband, Andre-Louis Auziere, never actually existed, and that Mr Auziere’s uncle had forged documents to hide the fact that his own wife had given birth to Mrs Macron’s three children.

The video went viral in the build-up to France’s 2022 presidential election, garnering half a million views before YouTube removed it for violating its guidelines around “fake news”. But the genie was out of the bottle. The hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux was trending on X in France in the days after the video was posted. In total, it was used on the platform more than 66,000 times, while being spread by accounts including those administered by anti-vaccine groups and followers of the QAnon conspiracy movement.

The Macrons fought back. Speaking at an event in Paris in March 2024, the French president said of the rumour: “The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios. People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.”

Also in March, Mrs Macron’s daughter, Tiphaine Auziere, told broadcaster BFMTV that the rumours were “grotesque” and “a form of harassment”.

The first lady filed a successful libel complaint against Ms Roy and Ms Rey and, in September 2024, the defendants were ordered to pay her €8,000 in damages, as well as €5,000 to her brother, Mr Trogneux. Mrs Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, commented: “The prejudice is massive. It exploded everywhere.”

However, that spirited public defence has, ironically, kept the story alive. Ms Owens first heard of it thanks to an article about Mrs Macron’s furious response. Then Carlson picked up the baton. In a YouTube video, he backed up the claim made by “my friend Candace Owens”, saying he had initially dismissed the rumour as a “flat Earth” conspiracy. “Then it turns out she’s right − my mind is blown!” said Carlson, offering no justification for this assertion.

But how on earth did this absurd accusation gain global traction? Sander van der Linden, professor of social psychology in society at the University of Cambridge, pointed out that we live in an increasingly fragmented media environment: “We don’t have central dissemination of news. Instead, people are in tiny echo chambers, slavishly trusting their chosen sources of information. It’s hard for us to share the same reality.

“Those are ideal conditions for conspiracy theories to thrive. Even if people don’t fully believe in a rumour, they might share it as a symbol of their beliefs or the political group they support.”

It’s a more palatable version of the conspiracy that powerful leaders are actually lizards

Joseph Uscinski, professor of political science at the University of Miami, observed that the likes of Ms Owens and Carlson have “a built-in, conspiracy-minded audience”.

“Those viewers didn’t slip on a banana peel and end up here,” he said. “They specifically chose a channel outside of the mainstream media. The broadcasters then have to provide the content they desire.

“The Macron story is ideal fodder. It feeds into their existing biases, plus it’s outrageous and fun.”

Such audiences might not even know who Brigitte Macron is, but this conspiracy relates to a larger narrative, explained Prof van der Linden.

“It’s a combination of evil elites hiding stuff from us and not being who they say they are, and suspicion of trans people and gender ideology,” he said.

“It’s a more palatable version of the conspiracy that powerful leaders are actually lizards. That’s a bridge too far for most people.”

Indeed, Ms Owens often ticks off other culture-war topics – such as anti-vax sentiments – in her videos about Mrs Macron.
The Brigitte Macron transgender accusation is clearly recycled, said Prof van der Linden: “The exact same story was peddled about Michelle Obama and Jacinda Ardern.”

But, even if it’s patently nonsense, the fact that many current world leaders are engaging in conspiracy-theory rhetoric means that it’s harder to outright dismiss it, said Dr Uscinski: “Tucker and Candace are piggybacking on Trump.”

That points to the deadly serious part of this otherwise ludicrous saga. Relations between France and the US are already troubled, with one French politician – Raphael Glucksmann – even claiming in March that the country should take back the Statue of Liberty after what he characterised as Mr Trump deciding to “side with the tyrants” in the war on Ukraine. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back, saying that if it weren’t for her country, the French would be “speaking German right now”.

This is someone who knew full well that she had false information, and did so with the aim of causing harm

It’s not inconceivable that, if the rumour becomes associated with supporters of Mr Trump, the issue could add further strain to an already tricky relationship between the US president and his French counterpart. Such an outcome would certainly be welcome in Moscow, Prof van der Linden said: “Russia’s goal is to stoke division and chaos.”

In August, Mr Macron told Paris Match magazine why it was so important to pursue legal action against Ms Owens: “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.”

Unsubstantiated rumours, after all, can often have very real consequences.