Vichy, Dachau or Auschwitz… Difficult to know exactly what was whispered in a train going to Limoges on Wednesday. On board, the CGT activist Frédéric Tronche, former head of the CGT-railway workers in Limousin, met the far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour on his way to present his latest book in a municipal hall. Since then, the versions clash. The CGT puts forward an anti-fascist joke while those close to Éric Zemmour denounce anti-Semitic remarks.
“At this stage, it is words of activists against words of activists”, recalls the president of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra), Mario Stasi, who calls for “caution”. Indeed, the comments reported by each camp differ greatly. The Reconquest party attributes two anti-Semitic sentences to the respondent in its communicated “Are you taking the train to Auschwitz?” and “I didn’t know it was the train to Dachau?” For her part, the secretary general of the CGT declared that the activist had “questioned the controller to find out if the train [n’allait] not in Vichy”.
“Scandalous anti-Semitic attack or failed ironic trait”
Frédéric Tronche was arrested on his arrival at Limoges station on Wednesday and then placed in police custody until 11:05 p.m. An investigation into “public racial and religious insults” is underway following Éric Zemmour’s complaint. The police are seeking to interview as many witnesses as possible in order to determine what exactly the CGT activist said. But while the investigation is trying to trace exactly what was said on this train, many Internet users have spotted and shared a post by Frédéric Tronche on Facebook. “Zemmour in my train… I check if the train is going well to Limoges… Fear that it goes to Poland”, wrote the activist then.
This message “can be read in two ways: a scabrous anti-Semitic attack or an ironic trait, necessarily missed because we do not laugh at the Shoah and we even less attack a Jew by referring to it, aiming at a polemicist who, on the history of Vichy, has constructed a revisionist discourse”, analyzes Mario Stasi, adding that “in both cases, however, this is not acceptable”. The Licra, however, specifies that it has “hesitation about the intention” because “a certain number of contextual elements must be studied”.
Publications far from anti-Semitic theses
Indeed, on this same Facebook page, Frédéric Tronche had called for demonstrations against the arrival of the former presidential candidate in Limoges and several of his publications show a clear opposition to the revisionism that he blames on the far-right polemicist. “A choice of Vichy, Maurice Papon or the Dreyfus affair, Zemmour uses the same intellectual scams that the fascists used in their time,” he wrote.
“Allowing Zemmour in a municipal hall means turning your back on the land of resistance that Limousin represents. It’s putting your feet in the slippers of the right-wing town halls that led the city during the collaboration. It is to choose the worshipers of Maurras [écrivain ouvertement antisémite] rather than the descendants of Georges Guingouin [résistant français] “, he developed. on June 10, he also published a tribute in memory of the massacre of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane by the Nazis accompanied by the message “June 10, 1944… neither forgotten nor forgiven”. The personality of Éric Zemmour is highlighted by the support of Frédéric Tronche.
A personality at the center of the debates
“Until proof to the contrary, the one who has convictions for incitement to racial hatred is Zemmour, not him. His strategy is to always victimize himself so that we talk about him, ”said Arnaud Raffier, secretary general of the departmental union of the CGT in Haute-Vienne. The far-right polemicist was, in fact, convicted in 2011 for racial discrimination, in 2018 for incitement to hatred against Muslims but also for public insults of a racist nature several times. The Court of Cassation must also rule on the challenge of crimes against humanity after the polemicist estimated that “Pétain had saved the French Jews”. Mario Stasi criticizes the far right for organizing a “buzz”, pointing out that the Licra welcomes with “a certain amusement the great lessons in this area from those who, on the far right, are novices in this field when they are not quite simply the quartermasters”.
He also highlights the communication flaws of the CGT which, as shown by Sophie Binet’s Twitter message accompanied by a hilarious smiley, uses a “light tone” when “any matter related to racism or anti-Semitism requires caution and rigor “. Whatever the criminal record and the personality of Éric Zemmour, if the words that Reconquête lends to the CGT activist were to be confirmed, they are legally reprehensible. “An anti-Semitism that targets Éric Zemmour is just as odious and reprehensible as that which targets another individual”, recalls the president of the Licra. Before emphasizing: “And unlike him, who wants the repeal of the 1972 anti-racism law, we believe that anti-racism legislation is an essential tool for defending the equal rights and dignity of citizens”. If these remarks were to be confirmed, the association “would condemn with the greatest firmness and reserve the possibility of becoming a civil party”.