Emmanuel Macron strongly denounced Monday as “an indignity” the fact that Eric Zemmour had let the crowd chant “Macron assassin” without reacting on Sunday, advising the “deaf candidate” to take advantage of the reform allowing the reimbursement of hearing aids. Chantal Dounot, head of Eric Zemmour’s movement in Occitania, does not condemn these remarks this Tuesday morning on France Bleu Occitanie. Interview.
A word first on Sunday’s incident at the Trocadero. Eric Zemmour did not tell his supporters who chanted “Macron assassin” to stop. Did your candidate make a mistake?
Look, I’ll tell you, I went through the exact same thing. I was in front at the foot of the grandstand and I didn’t hear it. There was a sort of echo which meant that on several occasions, moreover, I tried to listen to what the crowd was saying. We’re not here to specifically listen to the crowd.
Zemmour is not equipped with a headset, it is not recommended in real time?
That, I don’t know. But me, in any case, I did not hear it. When I arrived in Toulouse, I was listening to France Info and all of a sudden, I heard that. You also have to look at the context. We had just passed several messages from parents who had lost children in attacks.
But the president-candidate was called an assassin.
It’s a visceral reaction from a crowd.
So you do not condemn these remarks?
Me, I do not condemn.
We need to understand your background. What made you go from the UMP to the National Rally and now to Eric Zemmour’s movement?
First of all, I never joined the National Front. I followed Louis Aliot on a personal basis, I don’t regret it at all, because he’s someone I really appreciate. I must say that for years I had not found myself at all in the discourse of the UMP, which had become Les Républicains, which is in a purely managerial opposition, which does not take into account at all the future of the country, of what could be the future of our country in the next thirty years. And that started to bother me a lot. When we are interested in politics and especially the future of our country for our children and our grandchildren, we cannot be satisfied with knowing who will be the best manager, if it will be Macron, if it will be Valérie Pécresse, etc. . I believe that the debate is beyond.
Do you know how your electorate is made up? What percentage of the Republican right, the RN, the far left?
In any case, I’m going to tell you what I experienced when I saw the members of Reconquête arrive! in Haute-Garonne and in Occitania in general. Basically, it’s one-third Republicans, one-third National Rally and one-third abstentionists. And that’s what touches me. We see people arriving, telling us that they had not voted for years. I even met a gentleman who told me that he had not voted since 1974 in the presidential election and who said “Now we must react, otherwise France is ruined and we must go there”.
On the purchasing power of the French. Éric Zemmour wants the bosses to pay part of the fuel for their employees. Do you think companies can afford that?
They are already partially doing so. I believe he wants to extend it to all companies with more than 11 employees. Economically, I didn’t follow his program very well, but I think that given the additional context, it will become really essential.
The other subject of this campaign is of course the war in Ukraine. Eric Zemmour, at the start, said that the refugees should not be taken in, then he went back on his remarks. Should Ukrainians who are victims of the war be welcomed or not?
Listen, that corresponds very exactly to the right of asylum which, precisely, has been diverted for years to the benefit of economic migrants who had nothing to do here. And that is what we have always denounced. On the other hand, welcoming people who are fleeing the war and moreover, a priori, temporarily, I think that is something humanly quite acceptable.
So a welcome that should only be temporary?
I hope for them that they will be able to leave. I think for those unfortunate people, this is the ideal solution.
Eric Zemmour shocked many people last November in Toulouse. He blamed the Jewish families of Mohammed Merah’s victims for burying their loved ones in Israel. Is it a controversy you would have done without?
Listen, I’m going to tell you that in general, all polemics are misplaced because the real debate is evaded like that. We evade the root of the problem, we evade the future of the French, what they want for the future and by focusing on things that are sometimes regrettable and that will not settle the fate of the country.