Who is Eric Zemmour? France’s Tucker Carlson Electrifies the Presidential Race.
A second French polling institute has suggested that Eric Zemmour –
France’s answer to Fox News host Tucker Carlson – might face Emmanuel
Macron in the Presidential election run-off next April. While the French
public has been widely aware of the conservative journalist and
polemist since the early 2010s, he is beginning to garner international
attention.
Zemmour – born to a Berber Jewish family that left French
North Africa during the Algerian war – grew up in the suburbs of Paris
at a time of far fewer immigrants. He began his career as a journalist
in the 1980s and quickly garnered a reputation as an astute political
commentator.
During his early years, Zemmour forged relationships with
preeminent French political actors. These relationships provided his
articles with insights and commentary coveted by his peers. His talents
as a journalist were matched by his book and essay writing skills.
In the mid-2000s, Zemmour began writing books criticizing
modern day feminism as well as the multiculturalist ideology he felt had
corrupted the West’s elites. For him, many of the root causes of
France’s woes were the result of the deconstructive ideologies brought
on by intellectuals in the 1960s who targeted traditional values and
induced a sense of guilt in defending Western exceptionalism. Soon he
was being identified as a leading conservative polemist, embracing
opponents’ accusations of being a reactionary and increasingly invited
on debate-style television and radio shows.
Because the French place high value on a person’s knowledge of culture
and history, Zemmour’s ability to defend his arguments by quoting
authors and philosophers impressed audiences. By the late 2000s,
millions of French viewers had become accustomed to his staunch defense
of his ideas on the airwaves. While he remained exclusively a journalist
and author, his growing fame led ideological supporters from the left
and right who valued patriotism, nationalism, and traditional values to
attach themselves to his work.
In 2014, Zemmour’s star rose again. He published “The French Suicide” – an immense commercial success.
In the book, he retraced what he believed were the reasons
for the decline of France throughout modern history. Chief among them
was his claim that the French are no longer taught to love their
country’s history, and that they are being replaced by waves of
immigration from North Africa. The book addressed both the most
illustrious and the most controversial aspects of French history.
Zemmour argued that France needs to celebrate its entire millennium of
existence if it is to remain a great power and forge a cohesive and
patriotic society. Following the release of the book, some supporters
began openly discussing the possibility of a run for office.
Today, Zemmour is still not officially a candidate for the Presidential race. Rather, he is promoting his latest book entitled “France Hasn’t Said Its Last Word”.
His book tour has taken him across the country where thousands of
people pay approximately $30 a person to hear him speak about the crises
affecting the country, and in particular mass immigration.
The Frenchman has openly discussed his desire to impose immigration
control as the main question for the upcoming presidential race because
it has been a theme of his work for decades. In his words, whoever sets
the central question of the election has the best chance of winning.
While it’s now more a question of when rather than if Eric Zemmour
becomes a candidate, it remains to be seen whether he can consolidate
his early surge in the polls.
His argument to conservative voters is that he is the only person
capable of uniting what he calls the “two rights”: on the one hand, the
wealthy, elderly conservatives who are afraid of the populistic tones
and the family history of Marine Le Pen but are fed up with the
demographic and cultural changes experienced by the France in recent
years; on the other hand, the blue-collar workers who have lost all
trust in the establishment right-wing party for failing to carry-out
strong handed policies when in power and who are disillusioned by Le
Pen’s series of electoral loses.
As it now stands, Zemmour, Le Pen, and the mainstream conservative
candidate which has yet to be nominated, are all polling around 15
percent of the vote while Macron sits on a comfortable base of around 25
percent. If Zemmour is able to capture the broad white-collar and
blue-collar conservative coalition like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage
did in 2016, he could present a fierce opposition to the incumbent
administration. The fact that he has never been elected and does not
belong to any party will likely be an asset in the upcoming Presidential
race considering the rise in anti-establishment sentiment in France.
For now, Zemmour continues to defy norms by embracing
controversy in a way no presumptive candidate has done in the past. This
past week he told the French press he would hit back three times as
hard whenever he is attacked.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the French
presidential race suddenly looks highly competitive, combative, and
deliciously unpredictable.
