Already busy with current events across the Atlantic, she now decides to tackle… the Macron couple. Friday, the controversial columnist Candace Owens, widely followed in the United States, revealed in a video that she had been targeted by a letter from lawyers representing Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron. In the missive, the presidential couple’s lawyers accuse the commentator in particular of spreading false information about the First Lady’s gender.
Since then, Candace Owens has multiplied the invectives against the Macrons and even called on French Internet users to react on social and passion for conspiracy theories.
Candace Owens hasn’t always been a hyperconservative web commentator. After attempting to study journalism at university, and an internship at Vogue magazine, the native New Yorker ran the website Degree180, whose posts frequently mocked Donald Trump – back when he was a presidential candidate. As the Buzzfeed site recounts, Degree180 had, for example, published a parody survey, which questioned the size of the penis of the future Republican president, and assured that it was very small.
In the meantime, Candace Owens is making a 180-degree turn. In 2017, on YouTube, she published a video which recounted her conservative “coming out” to her family. With this video, she wants to embody the camp of black conservatives disappointed with the “false promises” of Democrats, historically favored by ethnic minorities in the United States. “As soon as they get to the White House, they do absolutely nothing for African Americans, but they make sure to remind us that we are black so that they can play the same identity card in the next election cycle “, she analyzed to Fox News.
Called by Donald Trump
She then founded a platform, “Blexit”, which calls on black voters to leave the Democratic Party and join the American right. His commitment took him to the direction of communications for a rapidly growing lobby: “Turning Point USA”. His goal? Fight progressivism in schools and universities, and praise conservatism, economic liberalism, or even the end of the welfare state in the same circles.
Beyond campus, Candace Owens is building her notoriety online. In 2021, she joined the media “The Daily Wire”, co-founded by another conservative YouTuber, Ben Shapiro. In “Candace”, her own show, the young woman talks about current affairs, “lies” from traditional media, and even pop culture. There she hosted Donald Trump (who called her a “very intelligent thinker”), Mike Pence, and other influential stars of the alt-right, such as Steve Bannon.
Facing the camera, the commentator turns all the major topics of 21st century society into vitriol. She is very critical of feminism, “the biggest joke in the world”, according to her, as well as of the #MeToo movement. She also opposes the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which took on an international dimension after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020. The issue is so dear to her that it appears in 2022 with Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week… With a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt (read: “White lives matter”), a slogan frequently claimed by the identity spheres of the American extreme right.
-Many conspiracy theories
Its contents also frequently veer into conspiracy. In 2020, the fact-checking site Politifact, for example, denounced several tweets from Candace Owens, who accused – wrongly – billionaire George Soros of having paid violent demonstrators to join “Black Lives Matter” rallies. The columnist was also singled out for her positions against the anti-Covid vaccine or her denial of the existence of global warming.
Like many other personalities in her camp, Candace Owens is virulent in the face of movements defending LGBT rights in the United States or in the West. In particular, she seems very concerned about the question of transidentity, which panics conservative and conspiratorial circles. Which may explain why, for almost a year now, the American has been closely interested in the crazy theories about Brigitte Macron that are spreading online.
In June 2024, she said in particular that French journalists were investigating “the theory according to which Brigitte Macron was possibly born a man”. A publication which would have earned him, in December, a letter from lawyers representing the Macron couple. According to captures shared by Candace Owens, the letter denounces “a disinformation campaign” which seriously attacks “the integrity and credibility of the President and Mrs. Macron”. Contacted, Brigitte Macron’s office had not yet responded to our questions this Sunday early evening.
This letter “will change the trajectory of my year”, assures Candace Owens this Friday, in front of her 3 million subscribers on YouTube. The 35-year-old commentator also promises to publish within two weeks a video exposing the “evidence” of Brigitte Macron’s “hidden transidentity”, thanks to the help of a “French journalist” who would have investigated the question. “I don’t like threats,” insisted Candace Owens. “I am exposing what I believe to be the truth. (…) You have no idea of the army that could be unleashed. It will be an army of investigators, of ordinary people,” she warns.
Despite her determination, the American videographer could expose herself to real prosecution. Two women were already sentenced in September for relaying transphobic rumors about Brigitte Macron on the Internet. Next July, four men will also be tried by the Paris criminal court for having cyberharassed the First Lady. In question, “numerous malicious comments relating to the gender, the sexuality of Brigitte Macron as well as the age difference with her partner (Emmanuel Macron) from an angle assimilating it to pedophilia”.
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