This Tuesday, March 12, 2024, the sun has not yet risen when the French complosphere is already on fire. On X (formerly Twitter), the most influential far-right conspiracy accounts do not hide their pleasure and declare victory. “The regime will no longer be able to hide what was for the moment an internet rumor. Is this the grain of sand that was missing to derail the machine?” rejoices Mike Borowski, media figure of the extreme right of identity in France followed by more than 172,000 people on X, pro-Russian, and major distributor of false information. The cause of such agitation? The release of a YouTube video on channel by American political commentator Candace Owens, who would provide damning new proof of the authenticity of a conspiracy theory that has been circulating since 2018 on social networks. This theory claims that Brigitte Macron was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux and that “the system” was organized to hide the transidentity of the First Lady.
This African-American, supporter of Donald Trump, has become in a few years a leading figure of the alt-right, a radical current of the American right. Like the rest of the Trumpist movement, Owens calls himself deeply “anti-establishment” and propagates, during his numerous public interventions, an openly conspiratorial discourse. She delivers her remarks with a disconcerting confidence and an irreverence that appeals to Americans revolting against the “system”. When it comes to attacking progressives, emblems of this elite that she despises and whom she accuses of destroying America, she does not shy away from any outrage. His latest feat of arms is this video published on his channel Candace Owens Podcast on March 11, 2024 and soberly titled “Crazy. This is the BIGGEST political scandal in the history of humanity”. For a little over fifteen minutes, Owens presents to his fans the “Brigitte gate” (“the Brigitte affair”) and comes to the following conclusion: the affair has every chance of being true.
For the French conspiratorial far right, Candace Owens’ position is a godsend. Its protagonists hastened to relay the information: all insist on the legitimacy of Owens as new proof of the seriousness of the theory. For the former parliamentary assistant and founder of the site “The left has killed me” Mike Borowski, “let a great American personality like Candace Owens who has nearly 2.9 million YouTube subscribers take up the Jean-Michel story Trogneux based on the work of Natacha [NDLR : Natacha Rey est une des personnalités qui a contribué à lancer et répandre la rumeur] And Facts and documents fact that this story is starting to become a global political fact.” Same story on Zoé Sagan’s influential X account, which very regularly sends conspiratorial content to its 185,000 subscribers: “Candace Owens is a superstar in the United States . At the top of lists of the most successful writers of the New York Times and with 5 million followers on X, she is now launching a cultural tornado that nothing can stop.”
Surprisingly, supporters of the Jean-Michel Trogneux theory justify it by the fact that Candace Owens was recognized and validated by the… New York Times (his book Blackout was part of the list of “best sellers” in 2020), a “reference” newspaper that they nevertheless like to condemn. Questioned on this subject, Tristan Mendès France, associate lecturer at Paris-Cité University and member of ConspiracyWatch, explains that “conspiracy theorists demonstrate opportunism in their use of traditional media. When BFMTV relays information that goes into their meaning, they will share it without questioning it because it gives a vague veneer of credibility to their narrative. Two seconds later, the same profile will talk about ‘BFMerde’, saying that it is a media that is never reliable for anything.”
Bridges between French and American conspiracy theorists
This crazy rumor had already made the headlines on Twitter trends in 2021, after the publication of an “investigation” by Facts and documents, a “confidential newsletter” founded in 1996 and known for its anti-Semitism, its conspiracyism and its obsession with lobbies, whether “Jewish”, “gay” or “Freemasonic”. At the time, many French media quickly “debunked” [démystifié] this affair and the controversy had naturally faded away. Basically, the video published by Owens only repeats the arguments put forward by Facts and documents in 2021, explaining why she considers them reliable. It uses classic conspiratorial methods, such as the argumentative millefeuille, which consists of drowning the reader or listener under a mass of disparate arguments which, taken individually, are all very weak but which, accumulated, make it possible to instill doubt. As sociologist Gérald Bronner explains, “certain arguments can be without any valid foundation and even be incompatible with each other, this does not matter, because it is the overall cognitive effect (that of the contagion of doubt ) which matters”.
The main argument invoked by Candace Owens is the attitude of the “system” towards this affair. For her, the suspicious behavior of the so-called “mainstream” media in the treatment of this theory legitimates interest in it. She thus cites an article from Daily Mail (a British daily), entitled “Proof that the French First Lady was not born a man”, and explains that it was reading this article that gave him the intuition that the story could be true: ” I read it straight away, because why would we need to present proof that Brigitte Macron was not born a man? […] there was no debunking, they were just quoting people who used all the buzzwords, like far right, conspiracy theories, racist, sexist, homophobia, anti-Semitism… All these words that we know they don’t want anymore say nothing, and it just made me want to look deeper into the theory.”
For Tristan Mendès France, Owens “plays on a misguided critical mind, which is an artificial questioning, but allows it to arouse suspicion. She also appeals to ‘the obvious,’ leaving the audience to judge and flattering her ‘ common sense’. His conspiratorial rhetoric is classic, it fuels suspicion without ever providing proof.” Fallacious logic, but terribly effective among those who are willing to believe it, because all the factual elements that can be opposed to it will be delegitimized because of the identity of the issuer. It is for this reason, moreover, that Candace Owens pretends not to know that serious debunking has been carried out and continues to be carried out since 2021. “The press is doing its usual job of trying to dismiss it as a theory far-right conspiracy theory, pushed by racist, homophobic and transphobic reactionaries. It would be so easy to debunk if it were false, there would be so much evidence! If it were me, I would hold a press conference.” she says.
This sequence is especially interesting insofar as it demonstrates the existence of bridges between French and American conspiracists. Across the Atlantic, conspiracy theories are reinforced through the use of circular references and mutually citing sources, creating the illusion of consensus or external validation. For Tristan Mendès France, “the disinformation market is globalized”.
The era of “fads”?
In France, the local complosphere used Owens’ video to support its thesis. In the United States, the polemicist inserts the Jean-Michel Trogneux theory into the American context. Thus, she argues that Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron were selected by the “states media”, who would have all the proof of the First Lady’s transidentity and would blackmail the couple to impose their political agenda. “If this case turns out to be true,” Owens says, “what we find here is exactly what is happening in America, that blackmail is what rules the world.”
Furthermore, notes Tristan Mendès France, the fabrications concerning Brigitte Macron “resonate with the conspiratorial myth of sexually degenerate and morally perverted elites of the Democratic Party, a theme dear to the ‘QAnon sphere’ [NDLR : QAnon est un mouvement conspirationniste américain d’extrême-droite]”No wonder Candace Owens, in the introduction to her video, clarified that she had always considered the love story between the President of the Republic and Brigitte Macron “extremely bizarre and frightening”, making explicitly refers to pedophilia.
Emmanuel Macron had, however, a few days before Owens’ exit, denounced for the first time “the false information and fabricated scenarios” circulating about his wife. “There are still some fads,” he added. As the American elections approach, the success of such a crazy theory does not bode well: the “fadas” still have a bright future ahead of them…
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