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Aug. 18, 2023 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
01:05:44
The Remarkable Eric Zemmour

Tristan Mordrelle recounts to Jared Taylor the extraordinary saga of the failed presidential candidate who campaigned on reversing The Great Replacement. Mr. Zemmour has not spoken his last word. His Reconquest Party remains the largest in France and is flexing its muscles for the upcoming elections. Thumbnail credit: © Panoramic via ZUMA Press

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this very special edition of Radio Renaissance.
It's my pleasure to have in the studio with me Tristan Mordrell.
Tristan Mordrell is a Frenchman.
He is a son of a Breton patriot, that is a patriot of Brittany in France.
He's also a French Identitarian whom I met no fewer than 29 years ago when he turned up completely as a surprise to me at the very first American Renaissance Conference in 1994.
We have been friends ever since.
I consider him a dear personal friend.
He's come to the United States several times, met my family, and has been very kind to me whenever I've been in France.
And so it is an added pleasure to be talking to a comrade of this distinction.
Mr. Mordrell came through the new right in France and was familiar with such people as Alain de Benoist.
And he works today as a specialist in fundraising for conservative and religious organizations.
And we would like to talk about the candidacy of Eric Zemmour.
He was a candidate for the French presidential elections in 2022.
Those of you who follow French politics realize that he made a tremendous sensation when he first offered himself as a candidate.
Mr. Mordrell followed that candidacy with great interest, and he is in a position to tell us about it in detail that most Americans will be unaware of.
So it's my pleasure to begin this conversation.
First, Mr. Mordrell, I'd like to ask you very briefly, who is Eric Zimmer?
What kind of a background, what sort of man is he?
Well first of all thank you for having me on the channel, on your podcast, but...
The First World comes to my mind, speaking of Eric Zamora.
That's an incredible man.
It's someone who stands up from the ordinary people.
And it's quite unusual because it's not what we can call a Frenchman, between quotation marks, because he doesn't come from a far away province.
He doesn't come from a very well known family.
He comes from North Africa.
His family became French citizens because the French occupied North Africa.
And his family was from a Jewish Arab background, and they decided in 1952 to move to France, to continental France at the time.
This was from Algeria?
Algeria, yes.
North Africa, but because Morocco and Tunisia were not French territory, while Algeria was still French territory, just like Brittany or anywhere else in France.
So they decided because I suspect they began to understand that the things were going very roughly in North Africa for the French and the antagonism with Arabs were going Bitter and bitter.
The antagonism between the French and Arabs.
So this was before the really worst of the Algerian Revolution.
Yes, because it began two years later with a massacre that happened in 44.
No, 54, sorry.
And that was the official start of the war.
So they were clever because they left before.
And they brought also their parents.
So the parents of Eric Zemmour left Algeria and they brought with them their grandparents.
And what's interesting to notice is as soon as he arrived in Paris, in the suburbs of Paris, the grandparents, the Jewish grandparents, They changed their names because they, as usually, they had Jewish first names.
And when they arrived in France, they changed their Jewish first name to Christian names.
I see.
Because it's this will of a lot of Jewish families, not only from North Africa, but also from Poland, so the Baltic States.
Or even Germany, who came to settle to France, they changed their name to be French.
Yes, very common in the United States.
Of course.
And the Jews have this ability to take the soul of the country they are investing in, they are interested in.
And this Jewish North African family became a very good French family as a sort of model role of integration.
So these were the grandparents of Eric Zemmour.
The grandparents moved with his parents, but his parents had already French names.
I see, I see.
And when Eric Zemmour was born a few years later, in 1958, in France, he received Christian first names.
But it's very common among Jewish people in France to give Christian names, first names, to their children, and they keep Jewish names for themselves.
For instance, the Jewish name for our friend Eric Zemmour is Moise.
I see, Moses.
Moses, yes.
He was prepared to lead his people to the promised land.
Exactly.
His father was a paramedic and his mother a housewife.
And his father was always away because of his job.
And he was raised mainly by his mother and grandmother.
And they tried to teach him ambition for excellence.
And the French system was something common with the Chinese one.
I mean the Mandarin Aid system.
And you have, you can get to the very top positions in society through exams.
Through the schools and university and exams.
That's the way the Jews excel and mainly the Eric Zemmour family.
So he spent a few years of his school years, school period, in Jewish school.
I see.
But as soon as he finished his middle-level school years, he managed to enter the prestigious School of Political Science.
Where he graduated in 1979.
That was Sciences Po.
Yes.
I am a graduate and you are a graduate.
So, perhaps we met Eric Zemmour without knowing it.
Because I was a student in this school exactly in the moment he graduated.
So, I'm sure I met him.
But I have no recollection of that historical moment.
Well, But the sad note for him and for his mother and grandmother that he was not admitted to the most prestigious school in France is the School of National Administration.
Because perhaps we should explain to our American friends that the French system is quite different.
And most of the people who want to be politicians or want to enter the administration or a government, they must go through that school.
Yes.
But he didn't succeed.
He tried twice.
In other words, oh, he failed the examination?
Yes, the entrance examination, because it's a very difficult exam.
Now, is there any possibility that there was any discrimination against him because he was Algerian or Jewish?
No, I don't think so.
Strictly on the basis of merit?
Yes.
And I can tell you, it's only about merit.
Because I was present at several exams.
It's a public examination.
The oral part is public?
Yes.
But there's a written part as well, is there not?
It's a written part, but no one knows who wrote the essay, so it's not possible to discriminate.
But the public and oral part of the exam is public.
So, as a young student, I went several times to see my fellow students trying to enter that school, and it was very impressive how difficult it was to answer the questions in a clever manner, because it was questions about every kind of thing that had nothing to do with the curriculum.
But they had everything to do with your cleverness and your ability to hand facts and to answer unpleasant questions in an intelligent way.
Well, that's quite interesting because I'm sure that when you graduated from Sciences Po, The Paris Institute of Political Studies.
You had the Grand Oral, the big oral examination.
Yours was public.
We were not there at the same time, but mine also was public.
And I was something of an intriguing personality to these French students.
And there were quite a few, there were quite a few classmates at my Grand Oral, very interested to see how this American was going to do.
But it is extraordinary.
At Sciences Politiques, we had an oral examination on all the subjects we had completed during a period of two or three years.
Very unusual system for any kind of English-speaking person.
I'm sure.
I thought it was quite fascinating.
Fortunately, I did very well.
But I didn't mean to interrupt.
No, of course.
But it gives an American perspective on that point.
So he fell the golden gate to French politics.
And he tried another one, it's journalism.
So he began a journalist career in 1986 and a few years, 10 years later, he entered the Figaro.
But he was still... That's a famous conservative daily newspaper.
Daily newspaper, very well-known conservative.
Liberal and conservative, as you can.
Most of the journalists today in the Figaro are left-wing.
Nevertheless, he managed to enter the Figaro as a journalist in 1996, and it was still... Was that 86?
86, he began his career, but he entered the Figaro 10 years later.
And he remained in this newspaper until 2021, when he began his political career.
But journalism didn't make him famous.
He was a very ordinary journalist among hundreds in the Figaro.
What changed everything was because he began to write essays.
Essays?
Yeah, essays.
And books about, first of all, about political situation, the biography of this one, or how this other one failed to meet this election.
I'm sorry, he wrote biographies?
Yes.
Of who did he write?
For instance, there was a man who was Prime Minister at that moment, it was Balladur, and he wrote also a biography of Jacques Chirac, who was President of the Republic.
But to remain is his domain, his politics.
I beg your pardon?
Those books remain in his expertise, his politics.
I see.
Party politics.
Party politics.
And no one bothers about these books.
I've never heard of these books, actually.
Of course, because they honestly have no interest.
Nevertheless, everything changed when in 2006 he wrote an essay about the first sex.
It's about the feminism and how feminism changes our society.
And it denounced the feminization of our society.
That men are no longer asked to be men, but trying to find their feminine side.
Because we were entering, and now it's worse of course, in a society where masculine virtues are not on the top priority list.
To see this young man, a young Jewish journalist, but in France nobody cares too much about the religion you have.
He's mainly a very brilliant young man.
He's a short one, a short man, and he's not a beautiful man, but he's a brilliant man.
Well, and I met him on one occasion, and he clearly has a great deal of energy.
Energy, his mind is focusing all the time.
We had one very interesting conversation, but I agree.
He's not a physically impressive man, but as soon as he begins to speak, there's an impressive quality about his mind that you discover quickly.
Exactly.
I would have said that with the same words.
And this book, Change the perception of the media, the media had about Eric Zemmour.
From being an ordinary journalist, he became someone who was able to express an unpopular thought, unpopular ideas, who were against the tide.
By the way, when he talked about the first sex, he was referring obliquely to the second sex, I suppose.
And the first sex is men.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex.
In any case, the first sex is men, but we almost never refer to ourselves as the first sex.
Even the title was a provocation.
Of course, and the leftist journalists and the intellectuals understood immediately.
They had a new foe in the realm.
It began to attract interest, not only from newspapers and magazines, but mainly from TV, from the TV.
And so it began at that moment to co-host TV shows.
And to be invited in a lot of programs to debate with feminists, to debate, to expose his unusual ideas.
And I think that moment helped him to understand that it could be much more useful trying to explore the dark side of French life society.
I see, I see.
So he became what we might call a kind of gadfly of society, constantly stinging here and stinging there.
Yes, in a sense.
And it was very profitable for him.
Because he was no longer a journalist in the Figaro, he was also co-host in that TV program, so he earned much more money and he sold a lot of books.
And a few years later, He published very regularly new books, but a few years later, in 2014, he published the book that will be his bestseller, half a million copies.
In France, it's enormous.
The French Suicide.
French Suicide, yes.
It's his first attempt to understand where was going this French society with the new threats.
And can we call the threats?
Can you name the threats?
Yes.
And that's the... Everything changed for him at that moment.
Because in... As soon as he appeared to the others, mainly in the TV shows and the other media, that he was really understanding what was going on, but most of all he was daring to tell the people.
He was no longer welcome.
So, big programs who accepted him as a co-host... Big television programs.
Big television programs no longer asked for him to come.
Well, but can you detail why that was?
What was the way in which France was committing suicide in his view?
Well, at that moment it was not... it was a very general analysis.
Not only, of course, immigration, Islamization were among other problems.
Yes.
But the fact that France was losing its soul, and without energy, not having enough babies, are losing the path to the north.
So, I'm sorry, the path to what?
Yes, the busolo.
Oh, losing its compass, losing its way.
Yes, losing its way.
So, he began, he discovered that Opening the can of worms was for him the best and the worst thing.
The best thing because he became someone very well known, but the worst thing because he began to lose everything.
Every public Capacity to reach French people.
His radio programs, radio appearances, his chronicles, everything was lost year after year.
And is it fair to say that the main reason all of these mainstream openings were lost is because he spoke so frankly about immigration in a way that terrified Ordinary conservatives.
Exactly.
Not only the left-wing people, but mainly the conservatives.
Conservatives do not like to be told about the problems they are not able to manage.
So they only want to put those problems under the rug.
But he still held his place at Figaro, is that correct?
Yes, and he was very well paid at the Figaro for very little production.
The real problem with the Figaro were not his ideas, but he earned a lot of money and he didn't produce so many papers and articles.
He was still a journalist at the Figaro, but he lost everything else.
All the TV shows, all the radio appointments, he had nothing else.
So at that moment, I remember, because Well, let me just note, this is a fascinating thing in Western so-called democracies.
Here you say he wrote this massive bestseller.
Ordinarily, someone who is such a success intellectually would be invited everywhere.
But because he stepped across the line, this taboo line, all of a sudden all his opportunities dried up.
Exactly.
But something changed, that sometimes we have luck in life.
And the name, the luck, what changed the situation was a man called Bolloré.
Vincent Bolloré is a French millionaire.
How do you spell his last name?
Well, I cannot spell in English because... All right.
It is B-O-L-L-O-R-E with a acute accent.
Acute accent.
It comes from Brittany.
My father knew his grandfather.
I see.
And it's a very devout Catholics.
I see.
This man, at the end of his life, he's not yet dead, but at the end, after a very interesting business life, is a billionaire, a millionaire.
And not like the American billionaire, nevertheless a very rich man, and decided to build a conservative media group.
So something unheard in France, because French people are allowed to have one conservative radio, one conservative newspaper, but to build a conservative media group was unheard.
And that was bad news for me, because When Eric Zemmour was left without anything, we offered him to come to our web TV, TV Liberté, that I founded with a friend a few years before.
And he sent us a message, thank you very much, but I'm waiting for a better opportunity.
Did he have some notion that this opportunity was coming?
I supposed, but it was not immediate because Vincent Bolloré had bought a news TV called C News and he was not in a very good shape, this TV.
And he had the idea to bring Eric Zemmour to this TV to improve the audience of this TV.
But this decision was met with a very great resistance from The journalist.
And nevertheless, he imposed Eric Zemmour at the TV.
I see.
So the people who were already there resisted Zemmour.
Yeah.
They thought he was dangerous.
Of course.
And of course, and then what is the name again?
C-News.
C-News.
So C, just the letter alphabet, C-News.
Yes, exactly.
And well, it's a very, it's a reality, it's in fact a TV talk show.
There is very, very few images from outside.
I see.
But it's the TV where people began to listen things they never heard before.
They were more radical than in our own web TV.
Is that so?
Yes.
And they were clever enough to bring a black co-host.
So, who was a very clever young black woman from our West Indies.
I see.
A very devout Christian and intelligent woman.
Beautiful woman too.
And she always kept her distance with Eric Zemmour, but in an intelligent way, not helping him, trying to help, to oblige him to give the best of him.
And he's a very brilliant co-host himself.
Well, that sounds really almost the ideal way.
There's a co-host who forces him to explain himself to a critical audience.
Exactly.
That's the best way, because As a very intelligent man, sometimes he's not very clear when he expresses his ideas.
So in this strange couple, a French North African Jew and a French West Indian black woman make a perfect combination.
And this program was unknown when they started it.
The program was between Eric Zemmour and this woman and in a few months The success was greater and greater.
So CNews became known as the TV channel of Eric Zemmour and helped this TV, flagging TV, to improve his ratings, to improve his commercial results.
So that was a very, very good result.
So he began in 2019.
Then in 2019, so in France where you had a very big presidential bloc of
I would say liberal.
Our President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, is more or less liberal, in fact, just like Trudeau in Canada.
And on the right, you have Marine Le Pen with the National Front, the party that changed its name at that moment, and National Gathering, I would say today, the new name of the party, and the little survivors from the liberal parties.
right-wing parties and a few people on the left without any importance in Parliament.
So, on the right side of the political spectrum, you had a vacuum.
Well, you say despite the presence of Marine Le Pen, a vacuum, because you're considering her
practically... No, perhaps I was not very clear what I meant to say.
Between the Liberals and the National Front, you had a vacuum.
The Liberals, the old right-wing parties, had no natural leader.
The party of Jacques Chirac, the party of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, all those liberals, right-wing traditional parties.
The party that's known as the Republicans?
Yes, for instance.
And they were in a sort of vacuum because they fell in the presidential elections.
So they survived because they have very good political organizations.
So began to appear the idea that a man so popular, like Eric Zemmour, could do something for that.
For the republic, or just take some position within that spectrum?
Yes.
And he was invited to speak.
You are welcome here.
You are at your home in the Republican camp.
But that was not the idea of Eric Zemmour.
Well, but wouldn't the Republicans be terrified of him?
Because he's so outspoken about these critical matters of the identity of France, immigration.
You are right.
So the first time he was welcome, not as a possible candidate, but as an intellectual.
I see.
them. But nevertheless they had no natural candidates. So some people began to think
Yes.
about Eric Zemmour as a candidate for the liberal right-wing parties. But that was not his idea.
His idea is that the National Front, who gathers the biggest chunk of the Marine Le Pen,
the biggest chunk of right-wing voters, is not able to gather enough votes to win the election
because she's too much radical. Too radical? Yes.
And she's not very knowledgeable.
She has not the intellectual level.
In France, it's still important to... The French presume to give importance to the intellectual level of people.
She is, for the top level of French politics, an intellectual lightweight.
Yes, exactly.
And a lot of the middle classes, I would say the higher earning people would never vote for her.
Out of a kind of snobbishness almost, I suppose.
Perhaps, but also because she didn't appeal to them.
And the idea of Eric Zemmour is to build another political offer that was On the right side, just like Marine Le Pen, but without the problems she has.
And to be able to bring the patriotic right to the populist right.
And to mix them and to gather enough votes to win the elections.
That's what the idea.
So perhaps you should give us a reminder Maybe this is not quite the right point, but how French elections work.
The first round and second round.
You're right.
In the French politics, everything goes by pairs.
The first and the second round.
In the first round, anyone can compete.
But in the second round, Only compete the two main leaders.
That's if in the first round, no one gets 50% plus one vote.
Plus one.
Yes.
And if you are not in that case, that almost never occurs.
But in that case, you have a second round.
We'd call it a runoff.
A runoff election.
A runoff election.
Yes, in a few states you have that.
Here in Georgia, I think.
And in this runoff election, you must gather votes.
So you cannot go like Marine Le Pen and go to a runoff election without being able to attract the other right-wing voters.
But the right-wing voters, when there is a sort of Cordon Sanitaire.
Well, you can say that in English, too.
Cordon Sanitaire.
That means to blockade the MOFA.
Yes, she was blockaded.
All the other white-wing parties will never ask their voters to vote for her.
Yes, because she's still considered dangerous.
Dangerous, non-democratic, everything.
Yes.
Eric Zemmour was convinced that he was able to get these votes.
To break through the Cordon Sanitaire.
Yes.
So, I think, if I am able to have more votes than Marine Le Pen, I will be selected for the runoff election.
In other words, he would be the number two candidate after Emmanuel Macron.
Because Emmanuel Macron, of course, was running for his second term.
He was already the incumbent candidate.
You're right.
So the idea of Eric Zemmour that if I manage to get more votes than Marine Le Pen, the other right-wing parties will gather with me for the runoff election.
So I'm the only one able to beat Emmanuel Macron.
Okay, so let's recapitulate.
Assuming that Eric Zemmour was able to come in second in the first round, Then, much better than Marine Le Pen, he thought he could get a much wider constituency of support to the point where he could do better than Emmanuel Macron in the second round.
That was the idea.
That was the idea.
So in 2021, as he was still a journalist at the Figaro, he has this wonderful and very
successful program on CNews.
Every night, half a million Frenchmen watch.
Half a million?
Yes, half a million.
So that brought him confidence about his abilities to enter the political realm, the political fight.
Because often they ask him, why do you become a politician?
You are not a politician.
Yes.
But the answer I gave is no one is able to bring my ideas to the political field because it's too dangerous for them.
So as an outsider, it'd be easier for me to bring my own ideas and try to present those ideas to the French people.
And during the first months of 2021, We noticed gathering people around him, trying to convince him that he had to run for election.
And a very brilliant young woman called Sarah Knafo, who was from the same origin, is one
of the most intelligent women I ever met.
With a very political mind.
It's no more a man, we can no longer speak of a mind, it's more a computer.
It's a brilliant woman.
And she began to see the opportunities behind Eric Zemmour.
And she was a very high level civil servant.
Civil servant?
Yes.
I see.
So she left her job as a civil servant to try to convince, to organize the political campaign for Riggs and Moore.
Now, did it require a lot of persuading to get him to run?
Or was he already pretty much convinced he wanted to run?
How would you describe the process of the decision making there?
I think nobody knows very well, but he was convinced that he had a role as he had a mission to save France from its oblivion.
And we must stop a few seconds about the soul of this man.
The what?
The soul?
The soul of this man.
He may be born, he comes from a faraway family, from another land, but he became a really spiritual French.
He is not perhaps a carnal French.
Not a physically French.
Physically French, as all the Frenchmen.
But he incarnates the French mind, because he's a very knowledgeable man, he writes very well, he speaks very well, he knows perfectly the French history.
So, in a sense, he incarnates France.
It seems to me it's more than knowledge.
He really does seem to love France.
Really?
You're right?
Yes.
Yes, perhaps we are no longer used to those kind of words.
Love of our own country.
But I think Eric Zemmour really loves France, and France not like he would like France to be, but France like it is really.
To give you an example, He thinks very highly of the Christian heritage of France.
And very often we have photographs of him in Catholic churches lighting candles.
Because for him, to be a Jewish man is not an obstacle to honor the heritage, the religious heritage of France.
And so he makes no pretense of being a Christian, but he honors Christianity.
Exactly.
He is a very devout Jew.
He goes very regularly to the synagogue.
He speaks Hebrew, but he raises his children in a Jewish faith.
His house follows the Jewish law.
He married a very Jewish woman, a very orthodox woman.
So No one can doubt his faith, but as a very Jewish man, you see no contradiction to honor the religion, the traditional religion of France.
It makes him very different from the other ones, even the conservative ones.
A most unusual man in so many ways.
Yes.
So, in the early 2021, he began to understand that he could no longer stay as a mere journalist.
He had to accept the challenge of saving France.
And it's just like John of Arc.
I think he thinks of himself from time to time in a little bit as a John of Arc in trousers.
John of Arc in trousers!
And how strange for an Algerian Jew to be the chosen vehicle for the salvation of Catholic France.
Yes, but sometimes miracles happen.
Yes, they do.
And so in this spring of 21, I think he had decided to run.
Yes.
But he couldn't run just like that.
First of all, they organized a political non-profit called the Friends of Eric Zemmour.
And also a very clever idea is to organize a youth movement called Generation Z. Generation Z. Generation Z, yes.
And they began to splash all over France Photograph of him with the only letter Z. And everyone began to understand that something was brewing up.
Of course, at that time everyone knew his face already.
Of course, but very few people associated his face with a political project.
And during the summer of 21, began the first attempt, the first fundraising efforts.
I see, I see.
And what is amazing and interesting, he had around him very wealthy bankers From people with a bank background.
And they were able to gather a lot of money for him.
So he never lacked funds.
Because he was surrounded with clever men who knew how to get money.
About wealthy people, but also with very good fundraising techniques.
And they called very good professionals for that.
And the polls began to be interested by a reason.
The polls?
Did you say the polls?
Yes, the polls.
And in the summer of 21, the first poll gave him 5% in the elections.
That's in the first round, just 5%.
Yes, in the first round.
It was astonishing, because 5% is a lot for someone who never had a political career, and then for a man who did not yet announce.
He hadn't yet announced his candidacy?
No, it was still a mystery.
Well, I guess he was tantalizing the public, and so to the point where the pollsters were saying, okay, this guy's not a candidate, but if he were to run, what would be the results?
Exactly.
In fact, the message was, we must convince Eric Zemmour to run.
It was very clever.
And they gather thousands of young people in this movement, Generation Z. People who never could have been with Marine Le Pen.
Young people from very well-off families, with high school diplomas, college diplomas.
They were very good people.
The kind of people you will never find on the national front.
So, he was building momentum.
And at that time he published a new book and he began to visit France.
You mean touring around France?
Yes, touring around France with his new book which was called France Has Not Spoken Its Last Word.
It's a way to tell people nothing is lost.
We can still win.
It was a great tour of France.
Only officially to sell his book, but in fact he was tasting the ground for his possible candidature.
And the result was amazing.
He gathered hundreds, thousands of people.
I remember, I remember admiring from across the Atlantic these meetings he would have With what?
Thousands of people, presumably there to buy a book for heaven's sake.
But clearly, they are there to see the man and support the man that they want to be the leader of their country.
Exactly.
But he had a choice to make at one moment, because he couldn't remain on the figure, or remain a seigneur, and publish this book, selling this book.
It was impossible for a single man to face all those tasks.
And we have an official organism about political...
Who measures the political time in TV and radio to be sure that everyone gets a fair part of the spectrum of the time.
So, at that moment, this organism decided that Eric Zemmour will no longer be considered as a journalist, but as a political candidate.
What is this organization that makes such a decision?
Well, the French name is an acronym, a awful acronym.
Nevertheless, he is a big administration who measures the time, the radio and TV, how long do the right speak, the left speak.
So they faced a very unconventional challenge because Eric Zemmour as a journalist was not compute.
Not compute, not in the calculation.
Not in the calculation.
And he was spoiling all the systems.
So just so I understand correctly, this organization makes sure that neither the right nor the left gets too much air time?
Exactly.
I see.
So they couldn't put him in the calculations because he wasn't officially a candidate?
No.
So they decided that in spite of not being a candidate, they will consider him like a candidate.
So they limit his time?
Not limited his time, but Telling to every TV or radio, well, you already spent 13 minutes with him.
Don't forget, he will count for the following week.
I see.
So he had to make a choice.
Right.
So in November 21, he declares his candidature.
I see, yes.
And he announced himself as Not a right-wing candidate, but as a candidate of the right in the 1990s style.
My ideas are not very different from what the ideas of Jack Chirac were 20 years ago.
Simply, I didn't change.
I didn't change my mind to suit to the new mood of the press and the dictature of politically correctness.
So, he presented his candidature likewise, and he wanted to be, as I told you before, the candidate of the Union.
The candidate could be able to gather in the runoff election.
That was in mind.
And the polls were very positive.
And from 5%, it went to 12%, 15%, and the highest point will be 18%.
18%.
He was polling better than Marine Le Pen.
Very little better.
Just a little bit better.
Yes.
I see.
It was the highest point he reached, but a few months later.
Yes.
And in December 21, he started his very first big meeting in Paris.
An explicitly political meeting, not a book sale.
This one was his first one.
Yes.
In Villepinte.
And he has very good speechwriters and it was a decisive moment for him because he never had done that before, to be on a podium in front of thousands of people.
They're claiming a text.
And for the French, literature is important.
So the text must be listened to and read.
You can read them.
And we measure the quality of a political candidate at the quality of his writing.
Unlike in the United States.
I don't know, but in France it's that case.
For instance, the leader of the extreme left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The left.
The left.
He's an excellent writer and an excellent speaker.
So, he speaks much more in the 19th century style, but I'm very fond of listening to him.
I hate everything he represents, but it's very pleasant to listen.
And everyone was anguished by the idea, what is going on?
How will he succeed?
To this big exam.
It will be, it will be... It's the grand torah.
Yes, but not in front of a few teachers, but in front of almost 10,000 people.
And the result was magnificent.
It was a surprise, I think, even for himself.
Because he never did it before that you have to... I don't know exactly the name in English, but the...
The text is on transparent... Oh yes, a teleprompter.
Teleprompter.
But it's not like in TV, it's invisible.
And he put the fire among people.
And he put the fire among people.
Everything, I look, I wasn't there, but I watched the meeting on TV.
Can you pinpoint a few of the ideas that lit this audience on fire?
I would say it's the fact that France can recover from the situation in which we are.
Well, but that's pretty vague.
No, of course, but it's complicated to recall exactly the best parts of the Of this allocution.
But he gave hope to the people.
He said, everything is possible if we gather together.
If we come together.
We come together and we fight against the enemy we can't name.
And that's the big difference.
He brought up all the problems.
About immigration, massive immigration, great replacement.
Yes, he used the term.
Yes, I think so.
Yes.
And that later he did.
But in this occasion, I don't remember, but I think so.
Yes.
And everyone understood what he's meaning.
Yes.
And that changed everything.
Because now, from this moment, all the All the traditional ways of dealing with French politics were swept away.
Because even the liberal right was obliged to use the same ideas, to speak about the same problems, with the same solutions.
I see.
So, and the candidate from the liberal right-wing party, Valéry Pécresse, used the words Great Replacement.
I see.
So he forced this vocabulary onto the French political dialogue.
He forced all the ideas of his campaign.
And on the same, he announced at that moment also the name of his party, Reconquest.
It was a very clear reference to this magnificent episode of Spanish and European history when we expelled Muslim conquerors from Spain.
It gave exactly the purpose and the ambition of his party.
Was to expel Islamic invasion in presence in France.
Yes, yes.
And that's the man, but behind the man, surrounding him, you had a team.
And he managed to gather around him a lot of brilliant people that never mixed before in politics.
And not only he gathered a lot of people, but also he raised a lot of money.
He raised almost 13 million euros.
A little more in dollars.
That's not much by American standards.
Yes, but by European standards it's a lot of money.
Because we cannot spend more than a certain amount of money in elections.
To give you the idea, in the first run of an election, presidential election, You cannot spend more than 10 million euros.
Oh, I see.
It's a limit.
It's a legal limit.
I see.
And one of the reasons also is because the state will reimburse your part of the expenses.
Yes.
So he spent 10 million.
Yes.
And he was reimbursed 7 million.
I see.
Wow.
So at the best moment of his campaign, he reached 18%.
Just had, well, a very short Clearly a head of Marine Le Pen, who tried another kind of tactic.
She was very soft spoken.
She only spoke about her cats and about social themes, but avoided completely immigration, Islam, anything, any big problem.
And something happened because in February, That was February 22.
February 22, he was 18% of the vote and second to Macron.
And in almost two weeks, he dropped from 18% to 8% and from being the second to the fourth.
Even after Mélenchon?
Yes.
In two weeks.
So what happened?
It's still not very clear, but nevertheless, something happened.
It's the invasion of Ukraine.
Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And he had very unfortunate words.
Yes.
Because when at that moment exploded the problem of the refugees.
Yes.
And when he was asked what to do with us, Ukrainian refugees, how much can we accept in France?
Yes.
And he had a very sensible answer, but it was not a political one.
He said, well, they should remain in the surrounding countries of Ukraine so they are near their families and they don't need to be so far away.
And the media interpreted those words as a lack of heart.
It was not compassionate to those poor Ukrainians.
Yes.
While the Marine Le Pen opted for another kind of answer, so the open arms.
I thought she hesitated to take that position.
She did, of course, but at the last scene she didn't say things that seemed so harsh to the French public.
So, I cannot tell you.
You think that could have been something that reduced him from 18% to 8%?
I cannot be sure of that.
But I cannot see any other thing, any other event that started the climbing down of Eric Zemmour.
And a second phenomenon arrived at that moment is the The idea that right-wing voters had to vote not for the ideas, but for the person able, the most able person to win against Macron.
And it was no longer him, because he was behind Marine Le Pen.
It's a utile vote.
Well, yes, what we call that.
In other words, voting for Zemmour in the first round would be a wasted vote.
Yes.
Because they had to have Marine Le Pen come in number two.
Exactly.
No matter what.
No matter what.
In the other sense, if Eric Zemmour would have been the second, perhaps the same mechanism would have been in his favor.
Yes, yes.
But that was not the case.
And in April 21, The first round of the election was a very big disappointment, not to say more.
And from 18% he fell to 8%.
That was in the first round?
Yes, it was the end of his presence.
And Marine Le Pen gathered 8 million votes.
And Eric Zemmour, two and a half million.
And the liberal one, one and a half million.
Right, that was Valérie Pécresse.
Pécresse.
So at least Eric Zemmour managed to get ahead of her.
Well, in April, Macron got 19 million votes in the runoff election.
And Marine Le Pen, 13.
A six million difference.
But that's a respectable showing.
Of course, but it validates the idea for Eric Zemmour that Marine Le Pen was not able to win the runoff election.
Two months later, the legislative elections, the congress, were a checked failure for Guillaume
with only 4% of the vote.
But it's very easily easy to understand because it's not a proportionate election.
It's only local elections.
So with the vote, the utile vote is at its Most.
So no one had any interest to vote for a candidate from Eric Zemmour.
Well, did he have any well-known personalities running?
Very few.
Very few.
And himself, he lost his legislative election.
Gosh, that must have been devastating.
Well, certainly extremely disappointing for him.
Yes.
And it's the kind of blow, either you die or you survive.
I'm happy to tell you that he did survive.
And today, one year after those tragic events, The Reconquest Party is still the first party in France with more than 100,000 paying memberships.
100,000 paying members?
Yes.
I see.
But how many candidates?
You never hear about them in... No, I don't speak about candidates.
It's membership.
I understand.
It's paying membership.
Yes, but they have still just a handful of members in the Chamber of Deputies.
Zero members.
Zero members?
Zero.
They have one or two in the European Parliament and a few in the local local councils but nothing. No, it's from an electoral
point of view, it's a failure, abject failure. But he didn't succeed to kill him. He's
still there, he's still defending his ideas, he's still touring France, he's still building
his party and the militants of his party are very active.
We would call them the activists.
Activists.
You have a lot of activists.
Yes.
And I'm very confident about what will happen.
I see.
Because our next election is a European election.
Yes.
The election to European Parliament with a proportional election.
Yes, yes.
And I think, I hope that Marion Marshall Penn will be the leader of this list.
Oh, so she will run in the reconquest, not Zemmour himself?
No, because he's a presidential candidate, so it would be a very bad I see.
It's a very bad signal to put him on the first in the European election list.
But Mario Marcial, he's a very brilliant young woman.
Oh yes, yes.
And she's more popular than him.
I see.
And I think she's the ideal profile.
When will those elections be held?
Next year.
Next year.
Okay, well very good.
That'll be something definitely to keep an eye on.
Yes, in September you have The summer gathering of the Reconquest.
And I hope that they will be clever enough to tell as soon as possible that it's Marion that will lead the elections.
Well, she threw her backing behind Zemmour to begin with, much to the dismay of Marine Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen thought she was betrayed by her own family.
Yes, but she gets what she deserves because she was very unkind for her niece.
They ate their own family.
It's a family where they destroy themselves.
So I understand very well that Marion Maréchal, who is a girl with ideas, while his aunt, Marine Le Pen, has no ideas at all.
No moral compass.
She lives with another woman for the meantime, to give you an idea.
She lives with another woman?
Yes.
They officially share a house.
I see.
And cats.
And cats.
Very important.
So, as a conclusion, I would say that it's very difficult to anticipate what the future holds for the Zemmour experiment.
We can still speak about an experiment, because in the coming months of years, the failure of the presidential And legislative election, as I told you, is not yet a death sentence for the moment.
Movement reconquest.
The long history of the National Front teaches Zemmour and his friends that patience, above all, is the main thing to keep in mind.
Patience.
His party still remains the largest in France in terms of membership, as I told you.
That means something.
If you are able to gather more than double the membership than the National Front.
More than double the National Front?
It seems, it means something.
So these are official dues-paying members?
Yes, exactly.
Theremore, he continues to be an extraordinary analyst of the woes afflicting French society.
Which no one else dares to give the name.
We owe them a complete change in the political landscape in France.
He changed the landscape.
Yes, but the mental landscape, too.
Thanks to him, free speech has been unleashed.
Not long ago, as I told you, Kahn supplied a great replacement, couldn't even be mentioned on TV.
Yes.
Today it's possible.
Is that an accepted part of political discourse?
No, but you can mention the words.
Yes, yes, yes.
That's a great achievement all by itself.
Yes, and most all the Frenchmen know about that.
Yes, yes.
There is a very big difference between seeing the Great Replacement in your neighborhood and Knowing, trying to utter the words that describe this situation.
Yes, yes, yes.
No, for most people, even if they sit in the neighborhood, unless the media say this, then they have this sort of crazy thing, double think.
But if it says, if the word is on television, if it's on the radio, then they can think about it.
Exactly.
I would say that with Zemmour, with Eric Zemmour, France isn't Necessarily improving.
At least not for now, for the moment.
But we can at least name the issues that are gradually destroying France.
Immigration and Islamization.
So, I can conclude with a few words.
The fight is still going on.
Well, let us hope that he continues to make these ideas mainstream, front and center.
Do you expect him to run as a presidential candidate next time?
I hope so.
But it's a long way to go.
First of all, we have to have success with the European elections.
So that sounds as though it would be a decisive thing for him.
If he fails in the presidential elections, fails in the European elections, then to then try to try again in the presidential elections might not be what he can do.
Well, Marine Le Pen, fail, fail, fail, fail, keeps repeating the failures.
Because it's a business as a party.
But who knows?
It's a long way to go from all things, and I'm very convinced that even if Eric Zemmour leaves politics, because politics is a rough time, it's very disappointing, His legacy we all endure and we will still having a very great debt for him.
A great debt, a great debt to him.
Yes, to him, yes.
Well, I will just conclude by mentioning briefly these terrible riots that took place after this Mahel young man who was obviously a thug and probably a car thief was shot by the gendarme.
In the best of the cases.
The best you can say about him is he's a car thief, yes.
And France goes up in flames for what is the umpteenth time.
You know, I looked up and I believe the very first race riot when Muslims went on the rampage was in 1997, for heaven's sake.
And they keep happening and they keep happening and keep happening.
But I was astonished that when Marine Le Pen finally said something about these riots, she waited, what, three, four, five days?
And then finally she says, well, clearly there's a problem of assimilation.
For heaven's sake!
This suggests to me that she's learned nothing from Zemmour's huge appeal.
No, you're right.
That's the main problem with the National Front.
They do not acknowledge what is going on in France.
Because they still think in, I would say, 19th century ways.
Assimilation.
That anyone can become a Frenchman if you learn French.
It's just like in the United States.
If you believe in the Constitution, you are an American citizen.
That's right.
That's completely stupid.
She opened the party to also for all-star right-wing people who do not share an identitarian way of thinking.
And today, these newcomers in the party are trying to expel all the last remaining identitarians in the party.
I see, I see.
Well, let us hope that Eric Zemmour manages to toss her I'm so pleased.
I was so pleased to be with you.
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