• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Saturday, May 28, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

France’s Trump? Eric Zemmour Has Studied The Playbook

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
11/03/21
in Featured, World
Eric Zemmour

French far-right veteran political journalist and TV pundit Eric Zemmour. Photo: Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

When asked about his strategy ahead of France’s presidential election next year, Eric Zemmour is candid about his admiration for Donald Trump’s US campaign in 2016. 

“He succeeded in bringing together the working classes and the patriotic bourgeoisie. That’s what I’ve been dreaming about… for 20 years,” Zemmour told the LCI channel in one of dozens of recent TV interviews.

The far-right veteran political journalist and TV pundit has not declared his intention to run for president, but has dropped enough hints to raise expectations that he will.

Zemmour has suggested similarities between the ex-US president’s chief concerns and his own: immigration, de-industrialization, as well as opposition to “the politically correct”.

“That means the media, judges, the cultural elite,” he said.

While the American’s route to power represented one model he was considering, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s was another.

“He did pretty well,” the 63-year-old said with a smile about the former mayor of London who harnessed fear of immigration and anti-EU sentiment among the working classes during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016.

Zemmour’s sudden emergence as a serious contender for the presidential election has electrified the French political class and led to frequent debates about his similarity to Trump and other successful right-wing populists of recent years.

The title of the Zemmour’s new book, France Has Not Said Its Final Word, faintly echoes Trump’s aspirational “Make American Great Again” slogan.

As politicians, both men present themselves as national saviors.

Zemmour admitted that even the front cover of his latest book, which features him set against the French flag, also borrowed the patriotic iconography of Trump’s 2016 tome “Great Again”.

‘Cultured figure’

According to one theory doing the rounds in France, Zemmour is similar to both Trump and Johnson in the sense that he embodies an essential national characteristic which forms part of his appeal to voters. 

Trump is an almost cartoonish representation of an American businessman — brash, braggadocious, fast-talking and wealthy.

Johnson, a graduate of England’s finest schools, has cultivated an image of upper-class cleverness and eccentricity. 

And Zemmour, a self-taught historian, peppers his writing and interviews with sometimes obscure references to figures from France’s political past and literary canon in the manner of a public intellectual.

“I believe in the comparison to Trump and also with Boris Johnson,” said Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador to Washington during Trump’s time in office. 

“Basically, the Americans want a billionaire, the British someone from Eton and Oxford, and the French want a cultured figure,” Araud told AFP.

Benjamin Haddad, a French analyst at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington, also sees parallels between Zemmour’s budding campaign and Trump’s. 

He summarized it on Twitter as “being deliberately radical which gives the impression of authenticity, controlling the media space, and starting controversies that force others to react”.

At a visit to an arms fair in Paris, Zemmour turned a sniper’s weapon on journalists, telling them with a smile to “Get back, move”.

The video, which was quickly picked up by French cable news channels, recalled right-wing Americans’ love affair with guns as well as Trump’s unrelenting animosity towards the “fake news” media, as he calls it. 

‘Not Trump’

Polls have suggested that support for Zemmour has surged in recent weeks as attention grows on his potential bid. 

He is projected to garner around 15 percent in the first round, and some polls have put him in the second-round run-off against President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the president’s traditional far-right foe Marine Le Pen. 

No poll, however, has shown him coming even close to winning the presidency.

Despite the parallels with Trump, there are also clear differences.

Christopher Bickerton, a lecturer in European politics at Cambridge University who recently authored a book on populism, said the “parallels are good in theory but in practice you can see all the differences”.

“Trump captured Republicans and the Republican party in a way that Zemmour hasn’t tried to and might never manage to do with France’s right,” he said.

He also says that populism is often “the politics of bad manners, of being outspoken, of speaking your mind, being anti-intellectual.”

“Zemmour is cultured, well-read and bookish in a way that others aren’t,” he said. 

The Parisian of Algerian Jewish heritage has been prosecuted several times for hate speech, however, from calling Muslim immigrants “colonizers” to describing under-age asylum seekers as “rapists and thieves.”

Unlike Trump, Zemmour’s ability to command a stage and fire up supporters in public is also untested, although he is an experienced debater thanks to his long career as a TV personality.

An editorial last month in the left-leaning Le Monde newspaper listed the differences between the two men under the blunt headline “Eric Zemmour is not Donald Trump.”

It acknowledged some similarities between them as politicians, but concluded that the French political system and electorate were far too different to make the comparison valid.

“These major differences make it difficult to apply the American prism to the French campaign unreservedly,” it concluded. 

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

French soldiers in Mali
World

Mali Asks France to Pull Out Troops ‘Without Delay’

by Staff Writer
February 18, 2022
Humanitarian worker places a face mask on a child refugee during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Opinion

As COVID-19 Lingers, Wealthy Nations Must Not Abandon Migrants

by Maria DeJesus
December 21, 2021
migrant boat tragedy
Refugees

31 Die in Deadliest Migrant Boat Tragedy Between France, UK

by Staff Writer
November 24, 2021
Rwanda genocide suspect
World

France Puts Former Driver on Trial Over Rwanda Genocide

by Staff Writer
November 19, 2021
A bike on Paris streets.
Environment

Paris Pushes Vision of ‘100-Percent Bikeable’ City

by Staff Writer
October 21, 2021
climate protest
Environment

French Court Gives Govt Nine Months to Boost Climate Change Action

by Staff Writer
July 1, 2021
Next Post
Pegasus

US Blacklists Israeli Maker of Infamous Pegasus Spyware

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro

The Murder of Art in Brazil

Recommended

The Onion

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’

May 25, 2022
police line

Teen Gunman Kills 15 at Texas Elementary School

May 24, 2022
refugees

More Than 100 Million People Forcibly Displaced, UN Says

May 23, 2022
Volkswagen logo

German Farmer Sues Volkswagen Over CO2 Emissions

May 20, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Russia Says Economy Grew 3.5 Percent in First Quarter

May 18, 2022
Mexico missing people

Over 100,000 People Reported Missing in Mexico, Data Reveals

May 17, 2022

Opinion

A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
China Muslim Uyghurs

Unfair Politicization, Corruption, and the Death of Modern Olympism

April 23, 2022
Ukraine war

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

April 20, 2022
Chinese leader Xi Jinping

How Wrong ‘How China Can End the War in Ukraine’ Is

April 1, 2022
Ukraine children

The War for Ukraine’s Lives and Minds

March 30, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post