The main presidential candidates now agree on the need to welcome refugees, including Éric Zemmour, who initially opposed it. And for good reason: the Reconquest candidate, but also the National Rally, are faced with a rhetorical challenge: how to justify the reception of Ukrainian refugees, after having opposed that of Syrians or Afghans?
It is indeed an about-face that Éric Zemmour engaged in this weekend, even if he denies it. Last week, on RTL, he said, speaking of Ukrainian refugees “I think it is not good to tear people away from their country, nor to destabilize France, which is already overwhelmed by Immigration”. Sunday, March 6 at a meeting in Toulon, he conceded that if Ukrainians specifically wish to reach French soil, they must be welcomed. He justifies it in the name of empathy, quite simply. “These poor Ukrainian women and children that we see on our screens and who tear our hearts, we must welcome them, until the bombings stop”declares Eric Zemmour. In doing so, he joins the position of the National Rally, expressed by the voice of its President, Jordan Bardella: guest Monday, March 7 from France Info: “Ukrainian families who are under bombardment, fleeing the fighting [doivent] to be welcomed in France, during the time of the conflict.”
>> Ukrainian refugees, rallying of Marion Maréchal to Éric Zemmour… The 8:30 am franceinfo of Jordan Bardella
“Ukrainian families are under the bombardments, these poor women and these poor children who tear our hearts”: thus confronted with the unfathomable misfortunes of war, welcoming Ukrainian refugees would only be a matter of the most elementary humanity.
However, Éric Zemmour, like the National Rally, spoke out against welcoming Syrian or Afghan refugees, who were also fleeing the war. How to account for this apparent contradiction: such is the challenge facing these leaders today. So they put forward several pragmatic arguments, related to geographical proximity, which I will not dwell on. Because the most significant seems to me to be elsewhere. When we listen to their statement, we hear not only reasons, but also…emotions. “I feel much closer to what is happening today in Ukraine, on our doorstep, on the doorstep of the European Union, than what may have happened in Syria or Libya. to the people I consider to be closer”, says Jordan Bardella. Éric Zemmour assures him that “Ukrainians are real refugees fleeing the war, because we feel close to them. Because they are Europeans, because they are Christians.”
Ukrainian refugees: “I feel much closer to what is happening today in Ukraine than what may have happened in Syria or Libya”
Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally#8h30franceinfo
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“We feel close to them, my heart goes out to those I consider to be closer.” We are in a lexical field relating to emotional feelings, rather than rational considerations. Now, this is something that has been fairly well studied by research in psychology: we tend to be more easily moved by what we consider close to us. That’s why Jordan Bardella is so insistent that this war is happening “at the gates of the European Union”. This is also why Éric Zemmour reminds us that Ukrainians are “Europeans and Christians.” The idea is that our solidarity should go above all to those who are like us.
An effective argument, precisely because it encounters the feelings and preconceived ideas of some listeners or readers, who may be tempted to reserve their own compassion for those they consider to be their fellows.
This does not work, however, without posing a double difficulty. The first is factual. Éric Zemmour says that the Ukrainians would be “real refugees”, as opposed to Syrians or Afghans who would in fact be economic migrants. This simply amounts to denying the reality of the civil war in Syria and the Taliban repression in Afghanistan: it is, quite simply, an untruth. The second difficulty arises in ethical terms, and I dare to use the word. For the pangs of war are the same wherever it strikes. The suffering of a people cannot be measured by religion or by the kilometers that separate us from it. Therefore, what should be the responsibility of a presidential candidate? Exploiting for their benefit the asymmetries of perception specific to our psychology? Or help us realize that the cries of men, women and children have no homeland?