The stripped grapes lie on the table, in the lodge of the Arènes de Metz, Friday March 18, and recalls that Eric Zemmour swallowed whole bunches in the fall, at the start of his electoral marathon. Twenty-three days before the first round, the atmosphere has changed: the Reconquest candidate! is buried in a leather sofa, shortly after one of his last meetings bringing together 4,000 participants. “I’m sure I’ll be in the second roundhe assures the press. I believe in it more than ever. » If the question is put to him, it is because, in the next room, his teams are sharing petits fours by conceding in an undertone that “the tone has changed” and “everyone is tired” after seven months of campaigning.
In fact, the meeting in Metz was the reverse reflection of Villepinte – its first major meeting on December 5. Eric Zemmour mobilized the same conspiratorial rhetoric against a mysterious ” they “ embodying a hostile system. But the militant atmosphere seemed anesthetized: few cheers, sometimes polite applause, “Ooh! » sluggish… The flags barely waved, the public did not get up. “It’s okay, it’s not bad. It’s the East, not Toulon”positive Olivier Ubéda, master of Eric Zemmour’s meetings. “Is Zemmour still your candidate? »he had harangued a little earlier to heat a room too wise, as if the answer was no longer self-evident.
” They “ oppose, in the mouth of Eric Zemmour – always very acclaimed when he entered the scene – to “those who say no”. Like a distant replica of Villepinte, the populist candidate spun the theme of “one against all”. “We are ready to save the truth to save France, whatever our adversaries sayhe warned. We will never hide a truth to please journalists or pollsters. They will not make the law! » While it is given in sharp decline in opinion polls, it targeted polling institutes which had underestimated abstention in the 2021 regional elections: “They will say they knew it (…) they have always been wrong about everything. » In the lodge, he’ll drive those polls “distorted by the media”.
Metz was the scene of a first: the former CNews columnist formulated a mea culpa. “The perfect candidate does not exist”he apologized, “no more than the perfect man”. “There are mistakes that I will not make again”, he continued in an unusual tone, quoting his comments on the disabled and on Ukrainian refugees. And, among his campaign lessons: “One sentence too many costs a lot when you don’t have time to defend it. » His conclusion nevertheless boils down to persist, and remain himself. “I learned that my sincerity could radically change the rules of the French political game, so I will continue”he promised his supporters, adding that demonization is “the tool that the media have found to make the French feel guilty for thinking what they think. »
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