Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron sue far-right podcaster Candace Owens over false claims French president's wife is a man
The 219-page defamation complaint filed in Delaware state court on Wednesday accuses Owens of proliferating 'demonstrably false' claims through her platforms, including in an eight-part podcast and on social media, designed to feed a 'frenzied fan base' in 'pursuit of fame,' the Macrons allege.
'These lies have caused tremendous damage to the Macrons,' according to the lawsuit, which names Owens as well her business entities, which are incorporated in Delaware.
The false claims have subjected the Macrons to a 'campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies,' the complaint says.
'Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history — twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,' the complaint alleges. 'The result is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale. Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications. It is invasive, dehumanizing, and deeply unjust.'
The Independent
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The Guardian
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My Worst Enemy review – Iranian exile recreates torture and interrogation in study of regime power
Film-maker Mehran Tamadon is preoccupied with the question of conscience, especially in contexts of extreme power imbalance. An Iranian exiled in France, he has made documentaries about the most fervent supporters of the Islamic regime, starting with Bassidji in 2009. In 2012, Tamadon was detained by Iranian authorities for hours of questioning, and though he was subsequently released, he became persona non grata in his home country. Now the director has turned to the tools of film-making to try to lay out a path for a return. He gathered a group of fellow exiles, with whom he re-created the lengthy interrogation sessions they once endured. His hope was that that final film would stir introspection, and even empathy, in the hearts of their former tormenters. This idea was, in truth, a naive one – as is his directorial approach. In the beginning, we see Iranian refugees take turns cross-examining Tamadon in various abandoned buildings in Paris. These role-playing scenarios, however, pale in comparison to the testimony of exiles, who speak of harrowing abduction and torture that unfolded over months, if not years. In contrast, there are no real stakes to the reenactment, which wraps up in a matter of hours. Tamadon's film only gains political heft when Zar Amir Ebrahimi, the acclaimed star of Holy Spider, joins the experiment. Her probing questions, delivered in character as an intelligence officer, expose the various ethical issues surrounding Tamadon's practice. Not only does role-playing reveal little about methods of autocratic control, such exercises may well re-traumatise victims of state violence. Framed in intimate, handheld cinematography, the tense two-day session between Tamadon and Ebrahimi bristles with a taut energy and Tamadon commendably builds the bulk of the film on these critiques, turning My Worst Enemy into an act of self-interrogation. It becomes a work about failure, and ultimately the limitations of cinematic techniques in dissecting and analysing systematic abuse. My Worst Enemy is on True Story from 1 August.
The Sun
20 minutes ago
- The Sun
Small boat migrant found dead riddled with bullets on French coast after being gunned down ‘by people smugglers'
A SMALL boat migrant has been found dead after being shot seven times by suspected people smugglers - with a murder enquiry launched. The deceased man - in his late teens or early 20s – is the latest victim of a surge of shootings around a camp at Loon-Plage, on the outskirts of Dunkirk. 3 3 3 Investigating sources revealed on Monday: "He was hit by seven bullets. "The camp was full of people hoping to get to Britain, when he was confronted by gunmen. "Around twenty bullets were fired in all, and seven entered the man's body." The source added how emergency service workers were at the scene but tragically couldn't save him. The Dunkirk prosecutor visited the crime scene, which on Monday was blocked off, and surrounded by armed police. The hunt was meanwhile launched for the "suspected people smugglers" responsible for murder, said the source. It was the latest in a long list of heinous shootings around Loon-Plage beach, from where small inflatable boats with migrants onboard regularly set off for Britain. In June, a Sudanese man was shot dead and a mother-and-child wounded by suspected people smugglers the same camp. The horrific bloodbath unfolded when a gang opened fire on specific targets, while hitting passers-by. Two males – a man and a 17-year-old minor connected to a people smuggling gang – were then arrested, and face charges of "murder by an organised gang' and "attempted murder by an organised gang." There were also charges related to possession of a range of weapons, believed to include pistols and rifles. Migrant hotel protesters take to the streets again as demonstrations spread across the country in weekend stand-off Beyond the dead Sudanese man, three other men were seriously wounded and taken to hospital in Dunkirk. All of the violence is said to be linked to people smugglers "settling scores" against those who do not pay them. The cost of a single voyage to Britain in a small boat is now as much as £1500 cash. In December, a gun enthusiast was charged with the murders of five men including UK-bound migrants around Loon Plage. Frenchman Paul Domis, 22, was remanded in custody after confessing to a lethal shooting spree in the area. During less than an hour of intense violence, Domis allegedly targeted three former colleagues, and two Iraqi-Kurds who had intended to get to Britain on small boats. Charlotte Huet, the Dunkirk prosecutor, said Domis faced 'life in prison' for 'three targetted assassinations' of men he knew, and two further charges of 'murder' of the migrants. Domis will be remanded in custody until a quintuple murder trial is held later this year, or in 2026. The Loon-Plage camp is an illegal one, but growing everyday as migrants from all over the world arrive. In the first half of this year, some 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK, up almost 50 per cent on the corresponding period last year. Numbers of what the British government calls "irregular migrants" keep rising, with 638 arriving on the coast of England in the seven days to last Friday. Bruno Retailleau, France's Interior Minister, regularly pledges tougher action against the highly organised smuggling guns operating in northern France. He said: "Our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who are getting rich by organising these crossings of death."
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Dave Brailsford future in doubt as doping questions overshadow Ineos Grenadiers' Tour
For Ineos Grenadiers the 2025 Tour de France was supposed to be about renewal. Welcoming a familiar face back into the fold in Sir Dave Brailsford following his well-publicised football sojourn. Saying farewell to one of the most popular riders in the team's history in Geraint Thomas. Developing the next generation: GC hopeful Carlos Rodríguez, Thymen Arensman, the young Briton Sam Watson. After years of drift, the image that Ineos wanted to present to the world on the eve of the race was one of a team who were getting to grips with the future. Brailsford was seemingly a big part of that. 'It's obvious we want to win the Tour [again],' said chief executive John Allert of Ineos's stated ambition. 'But there's no point just saying you want to win the Tour: you've got to do something about it. That's why it's great to welcome Dave back into the fold. Dave loves a performance challenge and this is the biggest one there is.' Allert added that Brailsford was 'like a kid in a sweet shop, talking about climbs and getting back to the mountains. That's the battlefield that he knows and loves'. Unfortunately for Brailsford, and the team, the battlefield they ended up on was a very different one, albeit one equally familiar to them. The case of David Rozman, Ineos Grenadiers' head carer, who was forced to leave the Tour after the International Testing Agency (ITA) launched an investigation into alleged messages he exchanged in 2012 with subsequently convicted German doping doctor Mark Schmidt, completely engulfed the British squad. Ineos initially declined to speak to journalists after Paul Kimmage of the Sunday Independent named Rozman as the longstanding Ineos member of staff referred to in a doping documentary by German broadcaster ARD pre-Tour. Then they claimed the allegations had not 'been presented to the team by an appropriate authority'. In the end they were forced to admit that Rozman had been informally contacted by the ITA back in April and that they had commissioned a 'thorough review by an external law firm'. Given the potential for the whole thing to blow up in their faces – ARD first approached Ineos at the Giro d'Italia back in May so they knew this was coming – it is incredible that Brailsford chose this Tour to come back. In fact, it is tempting to wonder whether it would have blown up the way it has if he had not. Was it his presence back at the race that acted like a magnet? Either way, it completely overshadowed Thomas's 14th and final Tour, not to mention the two stage wins by Arensman, who was forced to field questions in his winner's press conferences about something which occurred when he was a child. 'Do you think it's fair that you're celebrating the biggest result of your career and the journalists are having to ask you what's going on?' the 25-year-old was asked after the victory at Luchon-Superbagnères on stage 14. 'Yeah, I don't know, weird that they don't really answer you,' he replied, not unreasonably. Where do Ineos go from here? Can Brailsford survive? Can the team survive? If Rozman has been found to have done anything wrong – and the allegation is that he sent Dr Schmidt messages in 2012, the year Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to win the Tour – it could prove terminal. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos co-owner who bought the team in 2019, famously said when he took over: 'The day any of that enters our world [doping] then we would leave cycling.' Even if nothing is proven, it looks horrific, another in a long line of controversies that includes the employment of medical consultant Geert Leinders, who worked with Team Sky in 2012 and who was subsequently banned for life for multiple doping violations from 1996-2009 at a previous team, Wiggins' use of TUEs (therapeutic use exemptions) ahead of the three biggest races of his life, exposed by Russian hackers Fancy Bears, and which an MPs inquiry found to be 'unethical', Chris Froome's AAF (adverse analytical finding) for salbutamol in 2018 which he subsequently overturned, the infamous jiffy bag that was flown out to the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011, and the arrival of a box of testosterone to British Cycling's headquarters that same year which resulted in a four-year ban for Dr Richard Freeman. Team Sky and later Ineos have consistently denied any wrongdoing, but patience is wearing thin. Brailsford, who in the old days preached transparency and openness, telling journalists that the door was always open, has long since given up speaking. 'I won't be commenting,' he told media when journalists first started gathering outside the bus to ask about Rozman. 'F-----g hell guys, come on,' he added. Now he cannot answer because there is an official investigation ongoing. Even if he survives, one wonders whether this will affect Brailsford's appetite to return to cycling in a leadership role after his time out in football. He is still director of sport for Ineos, with a broad overview of the company's sporting portfolio. Will he go back to flitting between them? Ineos's appetite to continue in professional cycling is also unclear. Ratcliffe admitted to the Telegraph during last autumn's America's Cup that the team was 'under consideration', adding their results were 'not good'. Ineos won just 14 races in 2024, the lowest total in the team's history, and were winless at the Tour. Allert then said in January that Ineos 'don't want to spend more money' and were actively looking for a second title sponsor. TotalEnergies were announced as a jersey sponsor prior to this Tour, but it is unclear how much more patience Ratcliffe has. A spokesperson for Ineos did not return a request for comment. On the performance side, the team still feels a long way from being Tour-competitive, which is Ratcliffe's stated aim. While Ineos have lots of talented riders, how many of them would you build a team around? Rodríguez finished fifth in 2023, seventh in 2024 and was 10th overall this year before fracturing his pelvis in a heavy crash on stage 17. Arensman, 25, had a breakthrough Tour, and has twice finished sixth in the Giro and once in the Vuelta a España. But he was not targeting the general classification this year, and is not at the same level as a Tadej Pogacar or a Jonas Vingegaard. Who is? Remco Evenepoel is possibly the closest but it looks as if the Belgian is going to Bora-Hansgrohe. There are reasons to be more positive. Thomas is said to have been offered a management role, which could be interesting. The Welshman has always seemed immune to the troubles swirling around him, a friendly, likeable presence on the team. It also appears Ineos may be starting up an under-23 team under the guidance of performance director Scott Drawer and Simon Watts, the performance pathway manager. This could yield results down the line. But again, how much patience does Ratcliffe have? In the meantime, the team will batten down the hatches while they wait for the ITA to rule on Rozman. There is a lot riding on it. The Slovenian also worked with Team GB at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. He was personal soigneur to Froome for years. The four-time Tour champion must be wanting Rozman to explain himself. Brailsford, too. 'We have welcomed him back into the team with open arms,' Allert said of Brailsford's return less than a month ago. 'He's a not-so-secret weapon for us to use, and we plan on using him to the fullest extent we can. It's great to have him back.' A team statement read: 'David Rozman was informally contacted in April 2025 by a member of ITA staff, who asked him about alleged historical communications. David immediately notified the team of his meeting with the ITA and his recollection of the contents of the meeting. Although the ITA assured David at the time that he was not under investigation, Ineos promptly commissioned a thorough review by an external law firm. 'The team has acted responsibly and with due process, taking the allegations seriously whilst acknowledging that David is a long-standing, dedicated member of the team. The team continues to assess the circumstances and any relevant developments, and has formally requested any relevant information from the ITA.'
