A signing session that turns into a confrontation. In Brest, the arrival of Eric Zemmour on Saturday in a hotel in the city center was punctuated with violence. At the start of the afternoon, around 250 people, including 80 members of the ultra-left, gathered in front of the Océania hotel where the polemicist and founder of the Reconquête! was to meet his supporters. Insults quickly flared up and blows were exchanged between the two camps. Two people were injured and three people arrested.
After this violence, Eric Zemmour was quick to point the finger at the responsibility of the prefect who “did not do his job” and “is unworthy”. “Either it is political, out of hostility. Either it is negligence and mediocrity. And in both cases he is guilty”, he reacted, asking “Explanations and sanctions”.
Criticized by the former presidential candidate, the prefect of Finistère Philippe Mahé replied to him this Monday afternoon through a press release. “At no time was Mr. Zemmour’s personal safety threatened,” he said, stressing that “no demonstrator could approach him, even from a distance” from his arrival at Brest station until on his departure.
A squadron of mobile gendarmes around the hotel
Philippe Mahé also recalls that “for obvious security reasons”, another hotel in Brest had been offered to Eric Zemmour’s teams. But the latter “vetoed this change, despite warnings about the risks for supporters who came to have his book signed”.
The signing session held at the Océania hotel, a squadron of mobile gendarmes was deployed “around the hotel and in the surrounding streets in order to keep the demonstrators at a distance”, specifies the prefect. “Their professionalism ensured that at no time was the signing session interrupted, on the initiative of Mr. Zemmour or because the safety of those present was threatened,” he adds. According Current Values, the polemicist and his party Reconquest! will file a complaint against the CGT and the State after the events that took place on Saturday in Brest.