Candace Owens interviews Xavier Poussard, the journalist who broke the Brigitte Macron story
Candace Owens introduces her interview with French investigative journalist Xavier Poussard, who first published the story questioning Brigitte Macron's identity.
Summary
Candace Owens presents the sixth episode of her Becoming Brigitte series, featuring the first on-camera interview with Xavier Poussard, the French journalist who originally broke the story surrounding Brigitte Macron's identity. Owens explains that she received a legal letter from Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, which she believes was intended to prevent this interview from being published. Poussard describes how he came to investigate Brigitte Macron, beginning with inconsistencies in the official biographical narrative and the near-total absence of verifiable personal history. He details his collaboration with citizen researcher Natacha Rey, who identified a family photograph as key evidence, and explains how the couple's team responded to early inquiries with intimidation and deliberate misinformation rather than straightforward denial.
Key Takeaways
KEY TAKEAWAYS
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction by Candace Owens
Candace Owens: Alright, ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment we have all been waiting for. I'm so excited to share with you this interview with Xavier Poussard, the journalist who initially broke the Brigitte Macron scandal via a publication he did — multiple series in it, collaborative work with Natacha Rey, who had helped him. You'll hear about that.
So much is leading up to this moment, obviously. I just wanted to let you know: when I sat down with him at the end of last year, never in a million years could I have imagined that Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte would be sending me a legal letter. I believe it was because they knew that this interview was going to be forthcoming, and they did not want this series to happen. In many ways, this series may not have happened had it not been for me digging my feet further into the ground, simply because I believe in free speech and I believe in information, and I believe that what is happening in France is evil.
Xavier Poussard has never before this moment appeared on camera. He has been remarkably private about his work. He has dedicated years — years — of his life, has dealt with the brunt of what I would describe as a totalitarian government in France coming after him and his family. He has uprooted his family and had to move to Italy to make sure that they were safe and protected. And of course he is not the only one.
This interview is a culmination of a year's worth of work — really a year. Last year I read just the tip of the iceberg and recognized that this was an explosive story. Then when Xavier Poussard and I initially sat down and we just showed a picture of him, YouTube moved to take the interview entirely off and essentially said that we weren't allowed to discuss cults or imply anything about cults. But we felt that they had perhaps been contacted by someone with a lot of power.
Well, this time, what we've done in response is we built an entire website where we can put interviews like this up without the fear of having them taken down. And of course that's at CandaceOwens.com. So what we're going to do today is give you fifteen minutes of that interview with Xavier Poussard here on YouTube, obviously making sure that nothing trips over any of their policies, and then the rest of the interview will be available for free at CandaceOwens.com so that you can watch it in its entirety.
Just to let you guys know: when he and I were sitting down, I was still trying to comprehend elements of the story. So you may hear me ask questions as the viewers would ask questions, trying to understand exactly what it was that he was suggesting. That's why we felt that making this a series — so that you guys could at least have the backing of the first six episodes to comprehend what he is saying, which I think most of you do now — was so important to us. So important to the team. We have put so much work into this, and I am just truly humbled in all of this. Grateful to Xavier Poussard, Natacha Rey, and all of the journalists who have braved the French government — really, the evil of the French government — to bring us to this moment.
So without further ado, here is Xavier Poussard.
How Xavier Poussard came to investigate Brigitte Macron
Candace Owens: Xavier, I really don't even know where to begin here. I already feel like this is going to be the biggest story of the year and we're only in January. So I think just for my audience and everybody worldwide, just tell us how you got involved in the Brigitte Macron and Emmanuel Macron story, what your background is, and what piqued your interest.
Xavier Poussard: I got into this subject because I'm interested in press portraits — I specialize in unauthorized press portraits. The sort of things that people might not want somebody to say about them, but I do so with a conscience, and I do so as accurately as possible.
Candace Owens: And so they sort of dropped this biography — Brigitte Macron, Emmanuel Macron — there's this unofficial biography that gets dropped about them. And what is the first thing that strikes you as peculiar?
Xavier Poussard: There was an over-mediatization. The mainstream media decided to very strongly attack the other candidates during the 2017 presidential election — particularly Penelope Fillon — and to essentially hail and laud everything surrounding Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte. They were attacking the far right, everyone apart from them. So they tried to paint this picture of Macron as being a sort of Mozart-esque figure — that he was very virtuous and precocious. They began forming a narrative that he had met this woman when he was 17 years old. So this was the story of a man of great precocious nature, a conqueror, a virtuoso who no one could resist — essentially just as Mozart was.
So the first lie was regarding age. A journalist had compiled a combination of the number of times it was noted that they initially spun a narrative of him being 17 years old and her being 36. It was sort of this "brave man," going after the woman he loved at a young age because he was just a daring young chap, so to say. Whereas in fact he was 14 at the time and she was 39. Which turns it from a brave story into a story of pedophilia and the abuse of a minor.
When their real ages were brought to light, there were many mechanisms of communication in play from the couple. They really played on the way the story was brought to the public. It was sort of like Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman's movie Wag the Dog, where they used a spin doctor who brought certain messages to the public to distract them from the actual true scandal at hand. A narrative was spun about the difference in age being an issue between a man being younger and a woman being of an older age. Whereas the difference in age was exactly the same as, for example, Donald Trump and Melania, yet no one batted an eye there.
However, the issue is not so much the difference in age — and people sort of jumped on the bandwagon here and said, "Well, why? It's so unfair how a man of more advanced age being with a younger woman is not an issue, but the reverse is quite scandalous." But that is not the issue here. It's an issue of the age of Macron at the time, when he was 14. So this is clearly the abuse of a minor, rather than just a salacious story about a difference in age between a man and a woman.
Candace Owens: So essentially what you're saying is the media tried to do the modern feminist spin on this. Somebody got involved and said, "We'll take the feminist angle, the sexist angle, the misogynist angle, the ageist angle, and say you only notice this because it's an older woman — and why is that problematic if it's okay for Donald Trump to be with Melania?" It's actually a very smart way to try to spin it. But you're saying: "No, no, no, no. This is not about the age gap being an issue because it's a man or a woman. Emmanuel Macron was just 14 years old, and she was 39."
Xavier Poussard: Actually, Brigitte Macron was on the front page of The Economist, and there was this constant push on the left to guilt people — that the idea of a patriarchal society is not right. They tried to portray Brigitte Macron as this Barbie doll or pinup to the public. I believe a firm noted that in 2018 there was more content on Brigitte Macron on the internet than there was on David Beckham, who is obviously far more renowned. The internet became saturated with these curated pictures — and often doctored pictures — to make her seem appealing as a pinup, focusing on her attire, etc., rather than what was really going on.
Insiders in power knew, but the media didn't focus on her increasing level of political importance, which was far greater than most first ladies had in the past. Journalists saw there were no pictures of her as a child or as a mother. They saw there was no real background on her, and initially it was well-meaning for journalists — they just wanted to build upon this narrative which had been created around her: "She's this feminist icon, she's big in politics, let's tell her story." But they failed every time. They always faced a brick wall in the end.
I would just like to give you two quotes from journalists who are not conspiracy people — they're real journalists. The first is a woman named Virginie Linhart. She's Ashkenazi Jewish and reports on the Holocaust and such topics on French television. She said: "I needed photos of Brigitte Macron as a young woman with small children, showing an itinerary outside of those stamped by the best image agency. What doesn't come out is anything to do with her former life. It's a total blackout."
The second journalist is Sylvie Bommel, who does portraits for the French edition of Vanity Fair. She said while conducting her investigation: "It's like an episode of 'Black Mirror', where the president's offices have found a way to penetrate the brains of his former acquaintances and erase everything."
So we are facing something completely incredible. All these journalists who set out to tell the story of Brigitte Macron find this woman to be something almost paranormal.
The discovery of Jean-Michel Trogneux and collaboration with Natacha Rey
Candace Owens: So these are not conspiracy journalists, these aren't people on Reddit trying to make noise. What you're saying is these people were well-intentioned, they were interested in this feminist angle, they thought this was going to be an amazing story to cover — how this woman came to power. Sort of like doing a profile piece on Michelle Obama during the Obama years. And they were going, "Wait a minute. Where is this person? How did this person come to be? I've never seen such a black hole."
And this kind of gets into maybe something you never thought you were going to encounter. As you were digging into this, you probably expected some holes in the story, but not what you discovered next.
Xavier Poussard: So what I do in my job is I archive things. This is what I really enjoy — I like going back into details and back into history and looking at people's backgrounds. I had a bunch of people around me, my contacts in Paris, some mainstream journalists in the media, who were egging me on, saying, "Go on, this is what you do." This is what I do: I take information and share it when other journalists cannot.
And all of a sudden, I came across someone in my informal work surroundings, and he said: "This is a man. Like, surely you can see this is a man." As if it was the most straightforward, obvious comment he could make about it. Another one of my colleagues — he's a civil servant — calls her Amanda. Which is a reference to Amanda Lear. There was a similar case — it's not well known in the United States, but Amanda Lear was a somewhat notorious figure. She was a muse to Salvador Dalí, she was a singer and a television star. She's famous in France. Her biographies were written and rewritten, and every time they were rewritten, there were small discrepancies with dates and timelines.
I got the same impression when I read Brigitte Macron's biographies. For example: the death of a sister noted as 1960, but we later learn it was 1961. Then the death of a niece the following year, but when we go to dig for the information we discover she actually died in 1966. Then she says, "I bought — we bought — our house in Le Touquet in 1950." We then go dig, and it was actually 1957. And each time like that, the story is modified. So we say to ourselves: "What is this?" There was this element of creating complexity and confusion in order to essentially hide the elephant in the room.
Going back to Amanda Lear — Amanda Lear was born Alain Tap. He is very well known today. In fact, she was unmasked because at one time in her life she called herself Peggy from Oslo, and she was actually Mick Jagger's drug dealer. So we are still experiencing these very borderline behaviors. My point is: this avenue of a transsexual persona has been created before. But it's very dangerous to try to delve into it, because you run the risk of being branded a madman. "Who is this man claiming this absurdity — is he crazy?" So I was facing that risk.
I started talking to my broader network. I started going to everyone I knew, trying to figure out what was going on, because I knew there was a story here and I wanted to deepen myself within it. But the French, all in all, don't realize what's going on. It's not really on their radar. They're not quite aware as to how big this is.
All of a sudden, I get a number for this girl called Natacha Rey. She's just a normal citizen, not a journalist. She claims to be able to prove Brigitte Macron is a man. So we begin to exchange ideas and work together for a month.
Candace Owens: And is this the moment when you were first introduced to the name — the person — Jean-Michel Trogneux? Because prior to this, there were essentially just no pictures of Brigitte Macron for thirty-plus years of his or her life. Was it Natacha that first brought forth the name Jean-Michel Trogneux to you?
Xavier Poussard: So this is something interesting. I had identified this name in the archives of documents found in the commercial courts. I ordered a lot of documents from the commercial courts — called the INPI — to trace companies. I was interested in the Trogneux family, and I saw this name appear which did not appear in the biographies.
I realized that Emmanuel Macron wasn't really selling well to the public as a persona. He was in managerial positions and in hedge funds, and the public wasn't really gripped by this. When they decided to create a presidential candidate, they tried to focus more on the background of Brigitte Macron's family — the Trogneux family — who are a family of chocolatiers from Amiens, France. It is a family which is rooted in the real country, in the real economy. That is to say: they are not bankers at Rothschilds, they don't do mergers and acquisitions — they make chocolates. They were even compared to the Kennedys in the French press.
At that moment we said to ourselves: "Why is there this insistence on each brother, each sister, each niece, etc. — except one: Jean-Michel Trogneux?" Jean-Michel was erased. And Natacha told me that a family photo which was supposed to have Brigitte on her mother's lap had been shown to the press. She told me: "But look closely at the little boy. This is Jean-Michel Trogneux. By process of elimination, it is Jean-Michel Trogneux. And this hidden brother — if you look closely — is actually Brigitte Macron." She was fully convinced, and I thought: it's very disturbing, it's worth cross-checking.
Candace Owens: So in America there's an expression — we say "the dog that doesn't bark." What's quite interesting is this is the dog that's not barking. There's all of this information about all the family members, and you recognize that there's no information about this one family member.
And that photograph — the one we saw of their family in Amiens — I remember the first time I saw that photo, because that's actually what got me involved in the case. It was, for me, a matter of common sense. I just looked at the photo, and the Daily Mail was trying to tell me that the little girl on the lap was young Brigitte. And I just looked over to the left of the photo and said, "No — I have two eyes, obviously. I don't even know what the theory is, but that's clearly Brigitte." A very distinct face. You can't really change your face — well, I guess you can — but it was very distinct to me.
So this is sort of what Natacha noticed: you're looking at this family photo, you're looking into Amiens, you're looking into this chocolatier family, and you're noticing that this boy on the left — you don't know anything about whatsoever. What happens next?
Intimidation, misinformation, and the response from Brigitte Macron's family
Xavier Poussard: In an article I stated that this is a legitimate question, one worth posing. Why is Brigitte hiding parts of her past, and why is there such an unwillingness to speak about Jean-Michel?
What really prompted me to pursue this question was when Natacha and I started speaking about this — they detained her on the order of a cousin of Brigitte Macron. Natacha would develop an in-depth thesis on how Brigitte Macron is Jean-Michel Trogneux, and who Brigitte's children actually belong to.
We then realized further that one of the cousins was trying to set us up by giving us details which weren't quite accurate, essentially sending us down the wrong avenues. They tried manipulating Natacha, myself — since I relied on this thesis for information — and another reporter as well, into pursuing these false leads. Perhaps on order from the Élysée and the government itself.
Candace Owens: Okay, so that's fascinating — and this was also something that, again, I always tell my listeners: just common sense. So I'm just thinking: I'm the first lady of France, I'm Candace. If somebody comes to me and says, "Hey, your brother doesn't exist, or your sister doesn't exist," I'm going to take an opportunity to do a press conference. I'm going to stand next to my brother and say, "Conspiracy theories are harmful, let's put this to bed." I wouldn't contact the French equivalent of the Secret Service and have them detain a journalist who's working on a story.
That instantly flags as very odd. So you're saying that in addition to this, they're also giving you misinformation — ironically — and trying to get you to arrive at the wrong conclusion. So you've got intimidation and you have misinformation, and all you're doing at this point is researching. You haven't even arrived at any conclusions. But that's probably making you feel like: "What's going on here?"
Unfortunately, you guys, that is where we are going to have to cut the interview. As we said the last time we spoke with Xavier Poussard, our interview got taken down from YouTube, and we want to play it safe. So all of you can head to CandaceOwens.com and watch the interview in its entirety — the rest of the interview — for free. It's completely free of charge. The topic is way too important for us to put it behind a paywall. We hope that you appreciate the conversation, and I can't wait to speak with you guys about it on tomorrow's show.