“It is no longer time to reform France, but to save it. That’s why I decided to run for president. »After weeks of false suspense, Eric Zemmour officially launched into the battle. The former CNews polemicist announced his candidacy for the supreme office on Tuesday noon in a ten-minute video, viewed more than a million times on his YouTube channel. Targeting immigration and addressing those who “feel foreign” in their “own country”, the identity candidate says he wants to “save the country from the tragic fate that awaits him”. And maybe also save his own countryside.
On the decline in the polls and politically isolated, Eric Zemmour tries, with this declaration of candidacy, to regain control after a difficult period, peppered with controversies that have tainted his presidential image.
“This candidacy turns a page of his campaign”
His last trip, this weekend to Marseille, highlighted the evils of his pre-campaign. Isolated and greeted by hostile demonstrators, the former journalist of the Figaro shortened its field visits: a walk of about fifteen minutes under escort in the Panier district and a canceled walk on the Old Port. All punctuated by a middle finger addressed to an opponent. Captured by an AFP photographer, the gesture was castigated by the entire political class, like his controversial outings on
November 13 in front of the Bataclan Or on
the victims of Mohammed Merah.
What to stop, according to his opponents, his presidential change. “He has no program, no team, no self-control. After giving lessons to the whole world, he shows that he does not have the seriousness required by the function, ”tackle Sébastien Chenu, deputy of the RN close to Marine Le Pen. In an Ifop poll published in mid-November, only 14% of the French believe that he has the “stature of a President of the Republic”.
“Eric Zemmour acknowledged having responded inelegantly to the violence and hatred of the far left against him,” replied Benjamin Cauchy, one of his spokespersons. But this middle finger is the last gesture of the polemicist. This chapter is finished, we had to move on. The officialization of candidacy turns a page of his campaign ”, adds the ex-“ yellow vest ”, former close to Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
“He understood that the French expected from him a unifying attitude”
To find energy, Eric Zemmour therefore tried to announce his candidacy. Sitting behind a period microphone, the 63-year-old man mimics General de Gaulle’s call in 1940 in a library. A serious speech, against a backdrop of dramatic and nostalgic images, all set to a Beethoven symphony. “This is the real description of a bruised country that must be saved, of a harsh reality experienced by the French, assaulted in the street or in the metro. He draws up a gloomy observation but to offer hope of rediscovering the great industrial France, proud of its tradition and its history, ”suggests Matthieu Louves, spokesperson for the Friends of Eric Zemmour association.
Despite the doubts even internally, the release of some supporters, legal troubles, his supporters are not worried. Distanced by Marine Le Pen in the polls, the reactionary writer has not collapsed (between 13 and 15% in the polls) and claims to have collected more than 250 sponsorships. On security, justice or immigration, his words always find an echo in public opinion,
as shown by a large Ifop survey. His entourage hopes that this decisive week, concluded with his first big meeting in Paris on Sunday, and the launch of his party, will restore momentum to his campaign.
The timing is also not trivial: the sequence will poison the campaign of the Republicans even more, who are organizing a final debate this Tuesday evening, before the result of their internal ballot next Saturday. Eric Zemmour, who has always indicated that he wants to capture the right-wing electorate, has he finished with the controversies? “He is more determined than ever, he understood that the French expected from him an attitude of unifier, slips Antoine Diers, one of his first supporters. He will now more often show the humble and sympathetic man he is. “
Even if it means no longer talking about his old life? On the set of TF1, this Tuesday evening, Eric Zemmour refused to comment on his old books. “I am no longer the writer, I am no longer the journalist. Today […], my moult is done. “