“My sister voted for the socialist Ségolène Royal in 2012. She is an artist. She was attacked in the street. She met reality. This year, she votes Zemmour. »
Computer teacher, Romain came with his family with his wife and his disabled son to support his candidate on the occasion of his last big assembly, place du Trocadéro, in Paris. “He’s the only one who dares to tell the truth, the raw truth”, he confided to us, like the dozen supporters encountered on this beautiful summer afternoon on this mythical esplanade facing the tower Eiffel.
Two weeks before the first round, the former journalist candidate for the nationalist right played his all-out this weekend. At half mast in the polls after a dazzling start which allowed him to dream in the second round, here he is around 11%, behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate of the radical left (LFI), and almost tied with the representative of the right. classic, Valérie Pécresse (LR).
This is why the candidate bet everything on a show of force in this symbolic place which saw Nicolas Sarkozy parade in 2012 and François Fillon in 2017. These two candidates had not won the election, but they had seen their odds rise significantly after this meeting.
For the moment, the bet seems to have been met with certainly more than 60,000 people, and perhaps even 100,000 if we are to believe the candidate who claims “the greatest show of force of this campaign”. Unlike traditional right-wing assemblies, Zemmour often attracts a very young audience. Like Louise, a student who will vote for the first time in two weeks. “He is the only candidate who defends French values,” she said. Our heritage, our traditions, our literature and even the pig and the wine! »
Between a campaign which today seems frozen by the war in Ukraine and a president who seeks to step over it, Éric Zemmour has perhaps won the prize for the strongest mobilizations. But will that be enough?
The candidate probably doubts it himself, since at the Trocadéro, he openly appealed to join him, specifically calling on right-wing elected officials close to his positions such as Nadine Morano (LR), François-Xavier Bellamy (LR), Éric Ciotti (LR) and Jordan Bardella (RN).
“I will need everyone. I will need all the right-wing families and all the patriots”, launched the one who says he is “the only right-wing candidate in this election”. According to him, Valérie Pécresse would indeed be a “centrist”, Marine Le Pen a “socialist in economics”. As for Macron, he adds, “he still does not know whose side he is”.
The candidate, son of Berbers born in Algeria, took advantage of this last large gathering to address the French people “of the Muslim faith” directly. “I know Islam better than any of my competitors,” he says, before asserting that “there is a problem with Muslim expansion in France. “The one who says he respects “all religions and all believers” offers Muslims “to embrace French culture, a language, our history, our customs. Many Muslim compatriots have already made the choice of assimilation and these are our brothers”.
And the candidate concludes that “it’s not up to France to adapt to your culture, but up to you to make French culture your own. […] The French are generous, they just want to be respected. »
Evoking “the anguish of feeling like a foreigner in one’s own country”, Éric Zemmour then delivered a vibrant eulogy of France, “this country which has allowed the grandson of Berbers that I am to be on the most beautiful place in the world. Visibly moved, he quoted the Russian writer Romain Gary who said “I don’t have a drop of French blood, but France runs through my veins”.
“An idea of the French model”
Observers of this strange campaign believe that this assembly could play a crucial role in Eric Zemmour’s campaign. “While with the rise of Marine Le Pen, he knows that he has hardly any voters to hope for from the RN, Zemmour wants to take advantage of the weakness of the candidate LR [Valérie Pécresse] […] to try to siphon off his conservative electorate one last time,” writes the editorialist Guillaume Tabard in Le Figaro.
This week, the candidate of the nationalist right had raised the controversy by proposing the creation of a ministry of “Remigration”. Beyond the term, he wishes to send back to their countries the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who remain in France, those who are on file “S” by the security services (and therefore deemed dangerous) as well as convicted criminals who have dual nationality. Despite the outcry from the media, an IFOP poll revealed that 63% of French people do not say they are shocked by this term; 66% even say they are in favor of this “remigration”.
What will be the effect of this great gathering at Trocadéro? According to the director general of the IFOP, Frédéric Dabi, these assemblies “can restore vigor, like Le Bourget [pour François Hollande] in 2012, or on the contrary reverse the dynamic, as after the failed meeting of Valérie Pécresse at the Zénith de Paris”. Supporters of Éric Zemmour obviously want to believe that this will relaunch their candidate’s campaign.
“I think it will be difficult for Zemmour to reach the second round, said Malik, a 44-year-old Martiniquais. But I wanted to thank him for trying to save a certain idea of the French model. The one I knew thanks in particular to the French school. »
We will know in two weeks if the Trocadéro will have brought him luck.