French President Emmanuel Macron To Prove Wife Brigitte Was Not Born A Male

French President Emmanuel Macron is gearing up for a courtroom showdown in the US – armed not with politics, but with science. In a defamation case against rightwing influencer Candace Owens, Macron and his wife Brigitte are set to present scientific evidence to prove that France’s First Lady was not born a man, putting a dramatic twist on a conspiracy theory that has stalked their marriage for years.

The move comes as part of a defamation lawsuit the couple filed in July against Owens and her media business, accusing her of peddling falsehoods to boost her profile, gain audience, and make money.

Brigitte Macron’s life has long been under the microscope, partly due to the unusual trajectory of her relationship with the French president. She was a drama teacher when she met Emmanuel Macron at his high school in Amiens. Despite a 24-year age gap, their relationship grew into a marriage that has fascinated and divided public opinion at home and abroad.

Owens, who has repeatedly doubled down on the claim that Brigitte Macron was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, declared last year she would “stake (her) entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man” and followed up with an eight-part podcast series, Becoming Brigitte.

Tom Clare, the Macrons’ lawyer from the high-profile law firm Clare Locke, told the BBC that Brigitte found the claims “incredibly upsetting” and that they served as a “distraction” for her husband, the French president. “Expert testimony will come out that will be scientific in nature,” Clare said, without revealing specifics. He added that Brigitte Macron was prepared to subject herself to the process “in a very public way” to “set the record straight.”

Photos of Brigitte pregnant and raising her children will also be submitted to the court, he confirmed. Brigitte Macron, now 72, has three children from her first marriage, born in 1975, 1977 and 1984, and is a grandmother to seven.

The lawsuit also points out that Jean-Michel Trogneux is Brigitte’s elder brother, not her secret identity, and that he has attended both Macron’s presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.

The bizarre claim that Brigitte Macron was born male first went viral in France in 2021, ahead of the country’s presidential election. Self-styled journalist Natacha Rey alleged in a marathon YouTube interview with spiritual medium Amandine Roy that Brigitte was in fact Jean-Michel Trogneux.

Despite the complete lack of evidence, the conspiracy spread quickly online, amplified by conspiracy theorists and rightwing networks. The narrative was further propelled by the phenomenon of “transvestigations” — false online campaigns that claim prominent women such as Michelle Obama, Jacinda Ardern, and Kamala Harris were born male. Researchers say these campaigns thrive on social media, where users pore over photographs and videos to dissect features such as shoulders, jaws, or gait, presenting them as “proof” of hidden transgender identities.

“No evidence is good enough to stop the rumour,” observed digital culture researcher Lexi Webster.

Brigitte and her brother Jean-Michel initially won a defamation case against Rey and Roy in France, but an appeals court later ruled the claims did not legally qualify as defamation. The Macrons have taken that ruling to France’s highest court.

The Macrons argue that Candace Owens “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favour of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.” Owens has stood by her allegations and her lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming it should not have been filed in Delaware, where her business is incorporated.

The controversy over Brigitte’s gender coincides with another storm of viral speculation. Earlier this year, footage emerged of Brigitte appearing to shove Emmanuel Macron’s face as the presidential couple disembarked from their plane in Hanoi.

Initially denied by the Élysée, the video was later confirmed genuine but downplayed as a harmless squabble. “My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,” Macron told reporters in Vietnam. “Now it’s become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories.”

The incident, quickly dubbed Slapgate, was seized upon by accounts hostile to the French leader and folded into existing waves of disinformation about his marriage.

(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)