France's first couple didn't 'drop' lawsuit against Candace Owens

In early August 2025, a rumor circulated that France's presidential couple, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, had abandoned their defamation lawsuit against U.S. conspiracy theorist and far-right commentator Candace Owens. As Snopes reported, Owens spent more than a year spreading the false claim that Brigitte Macron was a trans woman.

For example, one post on X shared a photograph of the couple with the headline "PRESIDENT MACRON DROPS 22-COUNT DEFAMATION LAWSUIT ON CANDACE OWENS." The X user had taken it to mean that this move was an admission that Owens was right and Brigitte Macron was indeed "a man" (archived):

(X user @BGatesIsaPyscho)

The post had amassed nearly 710,000 views and 15,000 likes as of this writing. It was also widely reshared, both on X and on Facebook.

The image on these posts was the same. It bore a watermark from The Western Journal, a conservative publication from Arizona. 

Snopes identified a July 23, 2025, report associated with the photograph's headline and was able to confirm that the rumor stemmed from a misunderstanding of the word "drop" in the original headline, which the publication had since updated, presumably to stave off confusion. A Google search still showed the report's original headline as of this writing (archived): 

(Google)

So did a post by The Western Journal's X account, which had originally posted the photograph with the confusing headline (archived): 

We have therefore rated the claim false that the Macrons had abandoned their lawsuit.

On the same day as The Western Journal report, the Macrons filed a defamation lawsuit against Owens in Delaware. The 219-page complaint states that not only did Owens spread false allegations about Brigitte Macron's birth sex, she "knew they were false when she published them."

This lawsuit was widely covered in the U.S., the U.K. and France. The Western Journal was only one of many outlets to report on it. However, its headline lent itself to confusion due to the use of the word "drop." It read, "President Macron Drops 22-Count Defamation Lawsuit on Candace Owens." 

The meaning of "drop" was clarified in the body of the report (emphasis ours):

She should've listened to President Donald Trump.

Despite the president's alleged personal pleas for right-wing podcaster Candace Owens to drop her crusade against the French first family, she persisted.

And now Owens is facing a 22-count defamation lawsuit from French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron.

In other words, the publication used "drop on" in the sense of "slapping with," as in "the Macrons slapped Owens with a lawsuit." However, some readers apparently misunderstood it to mean "abandon," as in "the Macrons abandoned their lawsuit against Owens."

Further, a search on Google and Google News showed no evidence that the Macrons had abandoned their lawsuit. 

A spokesperson for the Macrons' attorneys at Clare Locke LLP confirmed that "the claim about the lawsuit being dropped is false." The firm also shared a statement that the couple and their lawyers published the day before they filed the suit explaining their decision.

In March 2025, Snopes debunked a claim that the Macrons had offered Owens money to stop spreading the rumor that Brigitte Macron was born a man.