FRENCH first lady Brigitte Macron could be forced to undergo a medical exam in her ongoing fight to prove she is not a man.
Right-wing US pundit Candace Owens says she will demand the evidence as she fights a lawsuit launched by Brigitte and her husband President Emmanuel Macron.
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The French power couple took action against Owens after she repeatedly claimed that Brigitte, 72, was born a man.
Owens said on Monday: “We’re going to demand Brigitte sit down for an exam with an independent doctor.
“We’re coming for her medical records.”
Last week, the Macrons’ lawyer Tom Clare told the BBC that the couple was preparing to submit “photographic and scientific” evidence that rubbish Owens’ claims.
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Owens said last March that she “would stake [her] entire professional reputation” on the claim that Brigitte was born male.
She even alleged Brigitte is in fact her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, and that her first husband never existed.
The Macrons filed for defamation in July – and the legal team say they are ready to fight.
The suit is still in its early stages and the feuding parties are yet to face off in a court room.
Clare said that Owens’ claims have been “very upsetting” for the First Lady and a “distraction” for Mr Macron.
He told the BBC’s Under Fire programme: “When your family is under attack, it wears on you.
“And he [Emmanuel Macron] is not immune from that because he’s the president of a country.”
He told the BBC there will be “expert testimony that will come out that will be scientific in nature.”
Photographs of Brigitte when she is pregnant exist and will be presented in court, the lawyer confirmed.
But Owens’ latest statement suggests she could seek to force Brigitte into even more invasive procedures to prover her gender.
The commentator and author previously told the Daily Mail: “This isn’t France, where Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron get to do whatever they want. This is America.
“You don’t get to skip discovery just because you’re a foreign world leader angry about a podcaster’s First Amendment rights.”
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The Macrons allege that Owens as spread false claims about Brigitte’s birth gender that are contradicted by substantial evidence.
The lawsuit notes that her claims had a large reach with her nearly 7million followers and X and more than 4 million YouTube subscribers – and seeks unspecified damages.
It states: “Owens has used this false statement to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money.”
They said that Owens expanded on the claim with short videos and her eight-part podcast series called “Becoming Brigitte.”
The Macrons also alleged Owens ignored credible evidence and instead elevated “known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.”
Owens’ lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the case should not be heard in Delaware and claiming forcing her to defend it there would cause “substantial financial and operational hardship”.
She has insisted she believes the claims and defended them as free speech.
“In contravention of a sacred precept of U.S. Constitutional Law, the President and First Lady of France… have filed a baseless defamation suit against an independent American journalist who broadcasts a daily news and culture show from her basement in Nashville, Tennessee,” reads Owens’ filing in the Macron case.
The rumours about Brigitte’s birth gender first took off in France after far-right magazine Faits et Documents printed them in 2021.
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Bloggers Natacha Rey and Amandine Roy pushed them in a YouTube interview that went viral.
They alleged Brigitte was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux — the name of her older brother — and that she never gave birth to her three children.
The Macrons sued Rey and Roy for defamation in Paris. In 2024, they won and the two women were hit with symbolic fines.
But in June this year, an appeals court overturned that ruling, not because the allegations were deemed true, but on freedom of expression grounds. The Macrons are now appealing that reversal.
President Macron has furiously denied the allegations, branding them “false and fabricated.”
On International Women’s Day he said: “The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios. People eventually believe them.”
