The ultra-right polemicist Eric Zemmour, 63, formalized this Tuesday (30) his candidacy for the presidency of France in next year’s elections, ending months of speculation on the matter. Five months before the election, polling intentions show the journalist second only to the current president, Emmanuel Macron, and the most prominent figure on the French right, Marine Le Pen.
Without a political trajectory, Zemmour became known and raised supporters over the last decade with texts published in newspapers and best-sellers in which he attacks feminism, Islam, immigration and multiculturalism. Due to the schedule, comparisons made with former US President Donald Trump are frequent.
The candidacy announcement was made on social media in the morning and accompanied by a 10-minute video in which, among other things, he criticizes immigration and says that French citizens feel like foreigners in their own country: “We must give power back to power to the people, to remove them from the minorities that oppress the majority”.
With an argument typical of the speeches of the ultra-right around the world, Zemmour justifies the decision to run for office with the need to “save the country from the tragic fate that awaits.” Still on immigration, he adds that it is not the cause of all French problems, “although it makes them even worse”.
The material alludes to General Charles de Gaulle, an important figure in French history in the 20th century and responsible for leading the country’s resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II. Zemmour appears speaking behind a large microphone and with a shelf full of old books in the background, recalling the image of the general urging the French to join the battle in 1940 through a radio broadcast.
Critics of the presidential candidate were made by figures from all political spectrums. French government spokesman Gabriel Attal told Europe 1 that Zemmour sold himself as a French Trump, when in fact he is a Wish Trump – a platform Paris accuses of selling counterfeit goods on the internet.
Marine Le Pen said, during an interview with local radio, that his likely candidacy is incomparable to Zemmour’s. “He is a polemicist, not a presidential candidate,” said the ultra-right leader Zemmour calls leftist and anti-liberal. The National Meeting, Le Pen’s party, is still evaluating who will be the candidate to run for the presidency, and her name is the most quoted.
Also during the interview, she said that economic, gender and migration policy issues highlight her differences with Zemmour. “He pits men against women and keeps pushing the French out while we do the opposite.”
The polemicist has been tried twice for hate speech against Arabs, blacks and Muslims. During a pre-campaign act in the city of Marseilles last weekend, he threw the middle finger at a woman contrary to his policies, in scenes that were recorded and widely criticized by the local media.
In an interview with sheet by email a month ago, Zemmour said, among other things, that “Islam is incompatible with the French Republic”; that “the fight against immigration is the immediate and vital priority” and that “Macron is a prisoner of Europeanism and globalism”.
The presidential candidate avoided questions about a possible ideological alignment with the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro (no party), saying only that he respects the sovereignty of the population that elected him. About Brazil, he said that the military’s return to institutional politics is the fault of the left, which, if it had “combated the terrible insecurity from which Brazilians suffer, would not have allowed the election of Bolsonaro”.
Zemmour was born in Montreuil and holds a degree in political science from Sciences Po. He worked as a journalist at Le Quotidien de Paris and collaborates with Le Figaro. He is also the author of several books, including biographies, essays and works of fiction; his latest work is “La France N’A Pas Dit son Dernier Mot” (France did not say his last word).
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