The French in Israel carried Eric Zemmour in the lead in the first round of the presidential election, Sunday, April 10, with 53.59% of the vote. This is an aberration with regard to the national vote (the far-right candidate obtained 7.07% of the vote), the case seems unique in the world. Emmanuel Macron comes second, with 31.72%, according to this first unofficial count. The French authorities published first results only for the main constituency of Tel Aviv, Tuesday, April 12. They are waiting for any appeals to have been examined by the Constitutional Council before publishing the final results on Wednesday, as in other constituencies abroad.
It is important to note the lack of representativeness of this vote, in which barely more than 10% of this vast community took part (approximately 180,000 people and 59,000 registered), one of the most numerous outside Europe and America. North. 80% dual nationals, Jews who left France to settle in Israel, many of them have not wanted to vote in their country of origin for a long time, or no longer feel legitimate there. In 2017, turnout was just 14.5%, excluding Jerusalem. Still, this result was long awaited, and it weighs within the French Jewish community, which Mr. Zemmour has deeply divided.
Le Pen wins 3.3% of the vote
These voters ignored the rewritings of history by the polemicist, who questioned the innocence of Captain Dreyfus, and who tried to exempt the Vichy regime from its responsibility in the extermination of the Jews of France, during the Second World War. They suffered what he calls“strangers first” Jewish children killed in 2012 by Mohammed Merah in Toulouse, because their families had chosen to bury them in Israel.
They did not listen to the calls of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) and of the Chief Rabbi of France, “court rabbi”, according to Mr. Zemmour, who asked the community not to vote for him. Among the dikes that this Jewish candidate of Algerian origin has blown up, there is therefore this one: the French in Israel have released a word and a vote from the far right, those who have never accepted the ” standardization” by Marine Le Pen.
Too associated with her father and the National Front, ex-National Rally, the far-right candidate obtained 3.3% of the vote, barely less than in 2017. This casts doubt on a massive report in her favor in the second turn, on the part of a community which had voted in 2017 at 60% for François Fillon (Les Républicains), then at more than 90% for Mr. Macron in the second round.
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