The French Have a New Donald Trump in Eric Zemmour, the Far-Right Firebrand – Vanity Fair

A media star with no political experience throws his hat into the ring and soars in the presidential polls. Hurling crude insults at his critics, bashing the elites, vilifying the press, and lavishing praise upon Russia, he rides a wave of populist anger, fear, and xenophobia as he promises to restore his demoralized country to its former glory. No wonder many pundits are calling Eric Zemmour the French Donald Trump. Zemmour, 63, who aides say is about to announce his candidacy, freely acknowledges Trumps rise to power as a blueprint for his own potential run. He even modeled the cover of his latest book, France Has Not Said Its Final Word, on Trumps 2015 manifesto, Great Again. Both men pose like patriotic saviors in front of their national flag. Both men have been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. (Zemmour has declined to respond to the allegations.)

Beyond the obvious similarities, however, the differences between Trump and Zemmour are substantial. Trump is an uncultivated vulgarian. Zemmour, in contrast, is an articulate, well-read intellectual whose speeches are peppered with literary and historical references. Trump succeeded by taking over the Republican Party; Zemmour, who belongs to no party, is scrambling to improvise a movement of his own. With his height, girth, and outlandish coiffure, Trump is physically imposing; Zemmour is balding, of modest stature and slight build, with a reedy voicethe kind of guy Trump would make fun of if he were in the opposing camp.

Perhaps the main thing the two men share is their status as outsiders that no one took seriously until they began to get traction in national polls. In Zemmours case, the rise has been meteoric: Credited in June with a 5.5% share of the theoretical vote, he has more than tripled that margin and now has a serious chance of facing off against President Emmanuel Macron in the runoff of Frances two-round election next April. Until recently, conventional wisdom had pointed to a replay of the 2017 matchup between Macron and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right anti-immigrant National Rally (R.N.) party, who has been trying to moderate her image. But by outflanking her on the radical rightand relentlessly insisting that Marine cant winZemmour could lure a substantial number of Le Pens 2017 voters to his camp.

Though he is not yet an official candidate, Zemmour has been sucking up all the media oxygen. He is a constant feature in TV interviews and debates. His face is emblazoned on the covers of major magazines. Crisscrossing the country on a book tour that is in fact a proto-campaign blitz, he has been drawing enthusiastic crowds at each stopalong with gaggles of sometimes violent demonstrators denouncing him as a fascist and racist.

Zemmour would deny both accusations, of course, but his words speak for themselves. His pronouncements and writings paint a bleak picture of France in decline: threatened by hordes of Muslim immigrants he contends are bent on turning the country into an Islamic republica process he calls the great replacement, the supplanting of Frances white population and its Christian culture by what he characterizes, in effect, as Muslim invaders. Declaring Islam in any form to be incompatible with democracy, he proposes, if he makes a play for the presidency, to close French borders to further immigration and expel 2 million foreigners over his five-year term. He also wants to outlaw the wearing in public of the Muslim veil and ban the use of Muslim first names such as Mohammed in favor of proper French monikers like Pierre and Jacques. Once he curbs the foreign invasion, Zemmour promises to restore France to its past grandeur, invoking the legends of Joan of Arc, Napoleon, and Charles de Gaullea pantheon of French heroes he apparently intends to occupy.

The French-born son of Jewish Berbers who immigrated from Algeria in 1952, Zemmour studied at Sciences Po and began his career as a journalist, radio commentator, and author of popular books expounding his acerbic views. For the past two years the fiery polemicist has been a star commentator on CNews, a right-wing TV network created about four years ago that is often compared to Murdochs Fox News. (Last September, he suspended his relationships with CNews and the conservative daily Figaro in order to comply with French watchdog rules concerning media access by political candidates, or in his case, quasi-candidates.)

With immigration as his main bugaboo, Zemmour voices a litany of racist, sexist, and otherwise extreme views that place him at the outer edge of Frances far right. Virulently anti-feminist and homophobic, contemptuous of all forms of political correctness, Zemmour favors a restoration of the death penalty, the lifting of highway speed limits, and curbs on what he calls the counter powersmeaning judges, the media, the minorities. He warns darkly of a looming civil war and has been sanctioned multiple times by French courts for inciting racial hatred. He also has a penchant for Trump-style provocations: In a shocking gesture that drew widespread criticism last month, he trained an unloaded snipers rifle on a group of journalists at a security event and jokingly ordered them to get back. When citizenship minister Marlne Schiappa called the act horrifying, Zemmour dismissed her as an imbecile. (A day later, the dangers of unloaded guns were tragically demonstrated by actor Alec Baldwins accidental killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set.)

In foreign policy, Zemmour is an ultranationalist who wants to pull France out of NATOs integrated command and forge a cozy relationship with Vladimir Putins Russia. Aides say he values Washington as an ally but insists on being treated as an equal partner and seeks an equilibrium between the U.S. and the Russian state. Yet his rhetoric is often tinged with undisguised anti-Americanism. Speaking at a rally in Rouen last month, for example, he called the D-Day invasion an occupation and colonization by the Americans. While he does not call for an outright Frexit from the European Union, he wants to curtail the E.U.s powers and reaffirm French sovereigntyhence his chumming up to Hungarys nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, with whom he met in September.

Though he is himself a practicing Jew, Zemmour has been accused of antisemitism by prominent members of Frances Jewish community based on a series of troubling remarks and writings. Recently, he suggested that the families of the Jewish children who were murdered by an Islamist terrorist in 2012 were not good French citizens because their families had chosen to inter their remains in Israel. He has cast doubt on the innocence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer charged with pro-German espionage and ultimately acquitted in 1906. Most troubling is his revisionist claim that the Vichy government under Philippe Ptain actually protected French Jews during the Nazi occupation, whereas Vichys active role in rounding up and deporting Jews to Hitlers death camps (on French trains) is well documented. Whatever his motivations, Zemmours dog whistles clearly appeal to those on the far right who are unhappy with Marine Le Pens rejection of the blatant antisemitism for which her father was notorious.

The most remarkable thing about the Zemmour phenomenon is that no one saw it coming. Its a spectacular rise, says Frdric Dabi, head of the IFOP polling institute. In the history of the Fifth Republic, we have never seen someone who was not part of the political establishment gain this kind of momentum. One explanation, says Dabi, is that Zemmour benefits from a leadership vacuum on the right. Marine Le Pen, after two failed attempts at the presidency, has lost much of her credibility, while her strategy of softening her messageshe calls it ddiabolisation, or un-demonizinghas left many followers hungry for the kind of red meat that Zemmour doles out.

As a result, Zemmour is eating Le Pens lunch. Since his appearance in the political arena, the R.N. leader has seen her poll numbers drop sharply and the two are now running neck-and-neck. At this early stage of the campaign, of course, there is no telling whether Le Pen or Zemmouror another candidatewill make it to the runoff round. But for now the fiercest infighting pits these two right-wing rivals against each other. One bad sign for Marine: Her own father, the sulfurous party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, 93, says he will support his friend Zemmour if he retains his command in the polls. Marine has abandoned her strongest positions, he has noted, and Eric is occupying that terrain.

Meanwhile, supporters of the right-center Republicans have still not recovered from the humiliating elimination of their champion, Franois Fillon, in the election five years ago. Divided by competing claimants, the Republicans will not settle on a candidate until their December 4 convention. The apparent front-runner, former labor minister Xavier Bertrand, currently lags behind both Zemmour and Le Pen in most polls.

As for the left, also divided by internecine squabbles, no candidate appears to have a realistic chance of reaching the runoff round. Fewer and fewer French voters identify with the left, says IFOPs Dabi. The countrys values lie very much on the right today. Some analysts even speak of an extreme right-ization of French opinion. Indeed, the combined poll numbers of Zemmour and Le Pen comprise more than one third of the French electorate. (At the same time, Zemmour has the highest negatives of any potential candidate: 70% believe he lacks presidential stature, 57% say he worries them, and 71% think he gives France a bad image internationally.)

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The French Have a New Donald Trump in Eric Zemmour, the Far-Right Firebrand - Vanity Fair