At his first campaign rally, French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour announced his party’s name “Reconquista” after receiving a round of applause from supporters and a wrist injury from one of his opponents, who lashed out at him before taking the stage. The correspondent of Kommersant in France tells Alexey Tarkhanov.
On Sunday, Eric Zemmour held his first meeting with voters – and not a week has passed since the journalist announced his desire to run for president of France. Replacing his usual “I” with a rally “you”, he called on his supporters to “re-conquer the most beautiful country in the world” and christened the new party “Reconquista”.
A lover of allusions, he did not even have to explain what the new name unambiguously hints at. In history, the term “reconquista” is understood as a series of wars in which the Spanish Christians, by the end of the 15th century, expelled the Muslim “Moors” who ruled there for several centuries from the Iberian Peninsula.
Erik Zemmour called on his supporters to fight, if not to war against mass immigration, “Islam-leftists” and crime.
He insisted that all loopholes for the entry of foreigners into the country should be closed, his goal – “zero immigration”. He intends to deprive foreigners of the right to family reunification, repeatedly toughen the conditions for obtaining French citizenship, and immediately expel unemployed foreigners from the country so that they do not sit on its neck. After becoming president, he promises to deprive the citizens of the criminals who have come in large numbers.
Mr. Zemmour was repeatedly reproached for making the fight against mass immigration and Islamic radicalism the main trump card of his campaign, paying much less attention to the economy and internal problems of France. They also said that it was easy for him, a professional journalist, to conduct intellectual dialogues in the studio, and let him try to perform in front of a hall of many thousands. However, yesterday’s meeting showed that there are enough people in the country who want to support precisely these tough positions of the candidate.
At yesterday’s rally there were from 12 thousand to 15 thousand people who eagerly listened to their new leader and were ready to support him with words and action.
This became apparent when a group of members of the SOS Racisme group tried to stage a demonstration in the hall “against Zemmur”. Rising from the chairs and throwing off their jackets so that the T-shirts with the slogan of the left movement were visible, the troublemakers immediately found themselves in a ring of angry “zemmurists”. The demonstrators were thrown out of the hall, and some were slightly beaten. SOS Racisme executives have already announced five victims, two of whom needed medical attention, and their intention to sue. And ministers and candidates close to the left condemned the “violence” shown in relation to the organizers of the “peaceful protest”.
At the same time, the supporters of Erik Zemmur themselves were under continuous pressure even before the meeting. The pre-election rally, which was planned in the Parisian concert hall “Zenith” in Bercy, had to be moved to the suburb of Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis) due to fears of riots. In Paris, left-wing parties were preparing for demonstrations in order to disrupt the meeting, but only the most stubborn of them made it to the suburbs. And all the same, the policemen who were raised on the alarm had to detain more than four dozen too aggressive protesters. Another incident took place just before the start of the rally. An unknown person attacked Erik Zemmur, who was walking to the podium. Jumping over the heads of the candidate’s bodyguards, he tried to grab his throat. The attacker was tied down, but as a result, Eric Zemmur received, as his entourage reported, a wrist injury.
It is curious that on the same day another candidate for the presidency, a fierce opponent of Eric Zemmour, the head of the “Unruly France” Jean-Luc Melanchon, was holding his election rally. The meeting with supporters of his People’s Union bloc was broadcast on some national channels, while Zemmur’s rally was left without television coverage. From there only came news of fights, that “unwanted” journalists were booed and taken out, and the arguments of Zemmur himself were presented more often in mirror reflections – in those angry philippics that were addressed to him by the leaders of the left parties and the ministers of the government of Emmanuel Macron. As if Mr. Zemmur were Medusa Gorgon, to look at which is deadly dangerous.
The first pre-election rally of candidate Zemmur became a very symbolic act of the new ultra-right force entering public politics. Supporters of the candidate will say without any doubt that Mr. Zemmur bathed in the love of the audience, showing firmness and decisiveness in defending his own convictions, even if at the cost of an injured wrist. Opponents will say with no less reason that his program from the very beginning divides the French up to hand-to-hand combat, that this threatens with conflict and that no “conquest” will be complete without “resistance.” Undoubtedly, the appearance of Erik Zemmur pretty much revived the usually decorous course of presidential campaigns, but also added to the current note of alarm. The first fights at rallies were somewhat reminiscent of the seething political life of the Weimar Republic, which surrendered Germany to the Nazis in 1933. Although the historical analogies are best left to the presidential candidates.
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