French President Emmanuel Macron used his legal case against Candace Owens to snark at Donald Trump’s record on media access.
The French president, 47, told Paris Match he had moved to sue Owens to ‘defend his honour’ over a “nonsense” gender conspiracy about his 72-year-old wife, Brigitte.
In the interview, also reported by The Telegraph, Macron said the lawsuit over Owens’ claims was about truth, not censorship—and in doing so, he made a not-so-subtle dig at the U.S. president.
“It is not freedom of speech to want to prevent the truth from being restored,” he said.
“Those who talk about this supposed freedom of speech are the people who ban journalists from the Oval Office. I don’t accept that.”
President Trump’s second term has seen him reduce traditional media access while elevating friendlier influencers. This year, his aides moved to sideline wire services from the pool.
Outlets—including the Associated Press and Reuters—have been blocked from covering some Oval Office events, sparking legal battles and industry condemnation.
Macron’s barbed comments toward Trump came as he and the First Lady pursue a 22-count defamation case in Delaware Superior Court over Owens’ eight-part podcast, Becoming Brigitte.
The podcast amplified a far-right conspiracy, pushed by U.S. culture-war figures including Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, that Brigitte Macron “was born a man.”
The complaint seeks a jury trial and damages, accusing MAGA loyalist Owens of spreading “verifiably false and devastating lies” for notoriety and profit.
Macron’s U.S. lawyers added Owens had created “a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,” which had led to “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.”
Owens has “built a brand on provocation, not truth,” the complaint alleges. It also states she “ignored multiple attempts by the Macrons to engage.” Owens claims she attempted to contact Mrs Macron, proposing an interview.
Publicly, Owens has doubled down, calling the suit “goofy” and casting it as a “foreign government” assault on her First Amendment rights—even complaining that Trump has failed to defend her.
But Macron said Owens “knew very well that she was using false news to cause damage… in the service of an ideology,” and that he filed to “defend [his] honor” after lawyers initially warned about the Streisand effect.
Pool/Aaron Chown/Getty Images)
“But it grew so big in the United States that we had to respond. It is a matter of upholding the truth. It’s about defending my honour. Because this is nonsense.”
After Macron filed the lawsuit, Owens claimed Trump had phoned her earlier this year and urged her to quit pushing the Brigitte Macron gender claim. “I saw her up close and she looks like a woman to me,” she quoted him as saying.
The Daily Beast has contacted the French government, the White House, and Candace Owens for comment.
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