“THE FRENCH Trump, it’s you!” a Parisian ally of the former American president once told Eric Zemmour. Or so the outspoken anti-immigrant polemicist claims in his latest bestselling book. A few weeks ago, such an assertion appeared self-serving and fanciful. But a recent poll surge by this Vichy apologist and television personality has taken established French political parties by surprise.
books predict the collapse of French civilisation, with titles such as “French Melancholy” and “French Suicide”. More recently he has grabbed attention as a provocateur on CNews, a cable channel that some liken to America’s Fox News. “Zemmour” posters have been pasted to lamp posts and walls. Last month Mr Zemmour was forced to quit his nightly TV show under French rules that require broadcasters to give equal airtime to political figures.
Whereas Ms Le Pen has tried to sanitise her party’s racist image and distance it from its roots, Mr Zemmour seeks to radicalise, provoke and frame the debate around his own obsessions. He is “counter-feminist”, anti-woke, and blends erudition with outrage, simple sentences and rant. Of Jewish-Algerian descent, he has declared that Vichy France in fact protected French Jews, that foreign first names should be banned, and that Islam is not compatible with France.
Mr Zemmour’s popularity may yet prove fleeting. But the polemicist, who claims he is a Gaullist, seems to have found a potent pitch. It mixes a veneer of intellectual respectability with crude populism, in a way that links the ultra-Catholic bourgeois vote to the working-class electorate. Ms Le Pen, by contrast, appeals to those on tight budgets, from the populist right to the ex-Communist left. In 2017 Ms Le Pen scored no less than 34% in the second round, against Mr Macron.
Winning the presidency, though, would be a different matter. No poll yet suggests he could do this, and Mr Zemmour may even help Mr Macron by splitting the hard-right vote and weakening the mainstream right. “He’s capturing attention as the curiosity candidate,” says Emmanuel Rivière, of the Kantar polling group: “It’s far harder to run a real campaign than to appear on TV or attend a book-signing.
'anti-immigrant' ? Let me fix that for you : 'angainst massive uncontrolled immigration from unassimilable cultures'. There. Naughty, naughty propaganda ...
Zemmour defends the idea that France is a nation with its distinct culture whose political system must defend against foreign forces, be they American, African, Chinese or else. Nationalism is of course alien to The Economist.
Eric Zemmour Is he ethnically French or Arab?
Another great mistake from the medias : ZemmourEric's program is not focused on immigration but foremost on the nation's sovereignty. That's completely different if you're serious.
I think that Macron will definitely stay for the next term
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: NYMag - 🏆 111. / 63 Read more »
Source: TeenVogue - 🏆 481. / 51 Read more »
Source: HuffPostWomen - 🏆 27. / 68 Read more »
Source: MSNBC - 🏆 469. / 51 Read more »
Source: billboard - 🏆 112. / 63 Read more »
Source: BuzzFeed - 🏆 730. / 51 Read more »