On Wednesday, French first lady Brigitte Macron, together with her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, filed a defamation suit in Delaware against social media provocateuse and general crazypants Candace Owens. According to the complaint, Owens has claimed, among other things, that Madame Macron is a man, that the two Macrons are actually “blood relatives committing incest,” and that Monsieur Macron was elected president as part of a CIA “mind control” experiment.
Given these fantastical claims, you might think the case would be a slam dunk for the Macrons. In fact, they face an uphill climb.
Under United States law—which differs on this point from pretty much every other country on the planet—public figures like the Macrons can’t win a defamation suit unless they can prove “actual malice.”
