What message could be better sold in time of war than that of peace? None, agreed the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour and his left-wing competitor Jean-Luc Mélenchon this weekend. Both mobilized their supporters for mass meetings on Sunday. Zemmour gathered 8,000 people in Toulon in southern France, Mélenchon’s organizing team counted 15,000 participants at his rally in Lyon. Neither of the two candidates made any concrete suggestions as to how the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine should be ended as quickly as possible. But they rely on the same slogan: peace.
Before Mélenchon, founder and leader of the left France Insoumise (LFI), took the floor, his supporters distributed olive branches, an international symbol of peace, saying that the campaign event was a “meeting for peace”. A few hours earlier, further south in Toulon, Zemmour had referred to himself as a “candidate for peace” on several occasions.
The left-wing pacifist Mélenchon and the radical nationalist Zemmour advocate opposing social models. Mélenchon calls for a strong welfare state, promotes a tolerant immigration society and wants organic farming to be expanded. Zemmour’s campaign is primarily based on rejection of immigrants and Muslims. What both have in common, however, is that in the past they have stood out for their special understanding of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
A circumstance that is so obvious in Zemmour’s case that the candidate doesn’t even bother to deny his numerous eulogies about Putin. Zemmour has repeatedly spoken of his “admiration” for Putin, who he sees as a role model in the “clash of civilisations” that Zemmour likes to invoke. In this binary worldview, Putin stands for masculinity, toughness, rejection of multiculturalism, Christian national pride – values that Zemmour offensively celebrates as an alternative to the “Western effeminacy” he laments. In 2018, when he was still an opinion journalist, Zemmour said he “dreams of a French Putin.” In a book he wrote in 2016: “Ukraine does not exist.”
Zemmour’s geopolitical solution? Out of NATO
While Zemmour now calls the Russian invasion of Ukraine “unjustifiable”, he also said that the war in Ukraine is a distraction from the fact that “our problems are in the south”, by which Zemmour means immigration from Africa. At his meeting in Toulon, Zemmour generously left out the Ukraine war. He repeated all the more often that he was the “candidate for peace”. “We don’t want a world war or a war within our borders,” said Zemmour, echoing his guiding principle that immigration leads to civil war. His geopolitical solution? Out of NATO: “The only camp I belong to is called France.”
Leaving NATO is a point on which Zemmour and Mélenchon agree. Unlike Zemmour, Mélenchon does not try to ignore the war in Ukraine, but made it the central theme of his campaign speech on Sunday (although he did not mention that he is opposed to both arms sales to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia). Mélenchon has unequivocally condemned Russia’s attack over the past few days. “Russia bears all the responsibility,” Mélenchon said of the war. Nonetheless, his past statements make his positions less clear.
Mélenchon emphasized on Sunday that he stood for “a non-aligned France” that “had to decide on a case-by-case basis” which geopolitical strategy was the right one and “does not accept armed force”. On other occasions, however, his analyzes sounded more like clear-cut friend-or-foe thinking rooted in the anti-Americanism pervasive in France’s radical left. In late January, when Russia deployed 150,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, Mélenchon said: “The US is in the position of aggressor, not Russia.” On Sunday, Mélenchon said France must not be dragged into an “absurd war” that is “a cold war” that “makes no sense”.
Green presidential candidate Yannick Jadot accused Mélenchon of “masking with his peace speeches that he had capitulated to Putin’s dictatorship.” In the polls, Mélenchon is five percentage points ahead of Jadot.