By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-28 20:11:16 | Updated at 2026-07-28 20:54:43
45 minutes ago
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, filed their defamation lawsuit against conservative podcaster Candace Owens in the US to circumvent a much shorter legal deadline in France, the defedant’s lawyers argued in court Monday.
Chad Shandler, a lawyer for Owens, said at a hearing in Delaware Monday, “the only logical explanation for filing here is to take advantage of Delaware’s longer statute of limitations,” according to a report by Bloomberg Law.
Shandler noted the Diamond State has a much more generous time limit of two years for defamation cases than France’s three-month statute of limitations.
Owens has been seeking to toss the lawsuit the Macrons filed against her in July 2025, claiming she defamed the political couple by spreading false conspiracy theories that France’s first lady is transgender and related by blood to the president.
The right-wing firebrand claimed that since she runs her podcast out of her basement in Nashville, Tenn., the Macrons have no standing to sue her in Delaware.
But Thomas Clare, a lawyer for the French power couple, fired back that Owens has companies registered in Delaware and that if the judge granted her request to dismiss the suit on those grounds it would set an “absurd” precedent that sends the message that “Delaware is good enough for me but not for thee.”
“These companies are the ones that actually published the defamatory statements,” Clare added.
Owens’ other lawyer, Katharine Mowery, countered the online provacatuer is being sued personally and “there’s no allegation she used her corporate power to make those allegedly defamatory statements.”
The Macrons phoned into the hearing but did not speak.
Judge Sheldon K. Rennie didn’t rule from the bench.
Brigitte in January clinched a legal win in a separate case when a French court found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying her by making numerous statements online that she was born a man and insinuating pedophilia had occurred between a much older Brigitte, 73, and her 48-year-old husband.
One of those defendants was sentenced to six months in jail while the others were given suspended sentences of between four and eight months while they were ordered to attend cyberbullying awareness training.
