Brigitte Macron Lawsuit marks new phase in fight against conspiracy theories

When the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte, took the rare step of filing a US defamation lawsuit against the rightwing podcaster Candace Owens this week, it marked a new phase in a legal battle against the false claim that Brigitte Macron is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux.

- Angelique Chrisafis

The Macrons' US lawsuit attacked what it called the "verifiably false and devastating lies" being repeated online by Owens, that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born a man. The lawsuit said evidence clearly disproved this "grotesque narrative", which had become "a campaign of global humiliation" and "relentless bullying on a worldwide scale".

The case prompted broader questions this week about how conspiracy theories spread worldwide, whether they can be stopped in the courts and what this false narrative, which began in France after the Covid pandemic, says about French society's distrust in politicians.

"This is now one of the biggest fake news stories worldwide in terms of popularity - a billion people have seen it," said Emmanuelle Anizon, a senior journalist for the French weekly, Nouvel Obs, who last year published a book, L'Affaire Madame, investigating the origins of the rumour in France.

The Macrons' US lawsuit states the accusation that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux is completely false and Jean-Michel Trogneux is in fact her older brother. Trogneux, 80, lives in the northern French town of Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte and four other siblings in a family famous for its local chocolate business. He was present alongside Brigitte at Emmanuel Macron's two presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.