What exact quote did Candace Owens give about France and its people?
Executive summary
Candace Owens publicly accused French officials — and President Emmanuel Macron specifically — of ordering assassination efforts and linked France to the killing of Charlie Kirk; she wrote that payments ran “through the Club des Cent in France” and claimed a French source said Macron ordered members of elite units to target her and that Kirk’s shooter had ties to the French Foreign Legion [1] [2]. Major outlets report these posts and videos have been widely viewed and promoted by Owens despite no corroborating evidence in the cited reporting [3] [4].
1. The precise language cited by multiple outlets
Reporting reproduces specific phrases Owens posted or said: she asserted that “payments for assassinations are running through the Club des Cent in France” and called on “the patriots of France” to investigate the paper trail [1]. Wikipedia’s summary of her November 22 X posts quotes her saying she had “credible enough” claims from a French government official that Macron had ordered members of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group to assassinate her, and that “this person claims that Charlie Kirk’s assassin trained with the French legion 13th brigade,” adding a gratitude line: “To the brave official in France who did this because they were so moved by the evil of Charlie’s public execution to risk their own life— May God bless you.” Those exact phrasings are noted in the cited reporting [2].
2. How outlets describe the posts and their reach
France 24 noted a post viewed over 43 million times in which Owens accused the presidential couple of paying for her assassination and claimed French complicity in Charlie Kirk’s death [3]. Global Nexter and other outlets frame her threads as tying an alleged Macron plot to Kirk’s September killing and say her subscriber counts surged after she promoted the claims [4] [5]. These descriptions document the scale and influence of the statements without vouching for their accuracy [4] [3].
3. What Owens explicitly tied to French institutions and individuals
Sources report Owens named specific French institutions and figures: the Club des Cent as a conduit for payments, the French Foreign Legion and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group as training or operational links, and the Macrons personally as authorizers of plots [1] [2]. She also alleged an international dimension — referencing Israeli links in some retellings — and sought to cast a French official as a whistleblower [6] [7].
4. How reporting treats evidence and counterclaims
European and international outlets covering the claims uniformly note the absence of corroborating evidence. Euronews says Owens “provides no evidence” for the assassination-payment claim and notes French officials denying some of the training links she cited [1]. France 24 labels the narrative “bizarre” and “false” in its fact-checking programme, while other outlets stress the theory’s explosive but unproven nature [3] [4]. The sources do not document independent verification of Owens’s quotes beyond the social posts themselves.
5. Legal and reputational context that shapes the statements
Owens’s allegations come amid an ongoing legal battle: Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron sued her for defamation in July 2025 over prior claims about Brigitte Macron’s birth gender, and reporting notes that lawsuit and past rulings color the dispute [8] [9]. Fortune and BBC coverage link Owens’s broader pattern of high‑profile, legally risky claims to the current litigation that frames media and legal responses [9] [8].
6. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas
Supporters in some corners — including a Telegram CEO cited by Times of India as saying French intelligence “is known for assassinations” — treated the claims as plausible, amplifying Owens [7]. Mainstream European outlets, fact‑checkers and the Macrons’ legal team treat them as unsupported or false and frame Owens as promoting persistent conspiracies that have legal consequences [1] [3] [9]. The competing portrayals reflect different incentives: Owens’s platform benefits from viral controversy; European outlets and plaintiffs have institutional motives to rebut reputational harm.
7. Limits of the current reporting
Available sources reproduce Owens’s language from social posts and summarize her claims but do not provide independent, verifiable evidence that Macron or French institutions authorized assassinations, nor do they present leaked official documents proving the financial-route allegation [1] [2]. If you are asking for the “exact quote,” the best-documented verbatim lines in reporting are the Club des Cent payment line and the passages reproduced on Wikipedia and in multiple articles; full transcripts or videos beyond those excerpts are not provided in these sources [1] [2].
Takeaway: multiple outlets quote Owens verbatim on two central claims — the Club des Cent payments line and the X-post excerpts about Macron ordering French elite units to target her — while also stressing that those assertions remain unproven in the published reporting [1] [3] [2].