He immediately quotes Jules Michelet, Napoleon and the exploits of the 1st French army which liberated Provence in 1944… with certainty, accompanied by three words: the war of civilization punctuated by “deconstruction, derision and destruction “. It is 8:20 pm, Friday at the Palais des Congrès “Neptune” in Toulon. Eric Zemmour is still not a candidate for the presidency of the Republic. He came to present his book released Thursday “France has not said its last word” (Rubempré).
“The drug bosses”
And he speaks as an oracle, mixing historical facts, geopolitical analysis, praise of “the French intuition of the Pieds-Noirs”, these returnees from Algeria to which his family was a part, like many spectators of the Mediterranean port. First civilization war: that which takes place between the “rising” power that is China and the United States, a “declining” power. With in the middle, “a Europe of Europeanists which is not useful any more for nothing”.
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Second civilization war: that waged by Islam against European civilization with its “traditional weapons: demography, looting, guerrilla warfare… all this in civilizational enclaves in the heart of France”. Outside, in front of the Ibis Style hotel in Toulon, the “Zemmour President” posters have already been distributed. With a letter Z in the form of a slogan, if the journalist-essayist soon decides to take the plunge.
They have been sitting for two hours. Jacqueline, a schoolteacher and Pierre, a retired sales executive, are seated at the top of the room. They applaud when the essayist denounces “the drug bosses who control Islamic colonies in the heart of the neighborhoods”. They stood up when he entered, with his frail figure, boosted by the adrenaline rush of the public.
Eric Zemmour, born in August 1958, beats his right leg, then left, on the chair placed in front of a coffee table between panels of the other guests of the “summer talks” of the Toulon literary festival. The face of novelist Didier van Cauwelaert, another guest, is to his left. That of the designer Plantu is to his right.
A country that does not exist
Jacqueline, the teacher in Hyères, near Toulon, is delighted to hear her praise “this literary tradition which, in France, links literature and politics”. She stomped when the writer suddenly spoke of the “rumor about my candidacy”, without confirming it. Two rows above, Yann has placed his luxury brand leather satchel on his knees. Fitted shirt, well-polished pointed leather shoes, the young computer scientist takes notes.
Victor Hugo was deputy. Chateaubriand was minister. Lamartine was the soul of the revolution of 1848. Zemmour, alias Z quotes them on the fly. He summons them to the bedside of his theses. “Its strength is to make us smarter,” says Yann. Zemmour is the anti Le Pen. Marine gives us the image of an often uncultivated France, a protestor without references. His revolution has letters ”.
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A meeting with Eric Zemmour is more than a trip to France yesterday. It is a journey through a country that does not exist, built like a Gallic lego, brick by brick, “which must no longer play at being the good student of Europe”. An incursion on French society in great danger “that they want to destroy with their dry guillotine that is justice at the orders of minorities”. A new projection on Islam and the Arabs “that we, the Blackfoot, we know well because we have lived by their side”. Colonization, for him, never rhymes with crime.
This France does not support Emmanuel Macron, even if the essayist recognizes “that he has more level than the others in this slow descent into hell” from which only a few exceptions survive, such as the late Philippe Séguin, the former Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement or the candidate of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “men of ideas and culture for me, candidate for debate”.
“Truths that we can understand”
Zemmour speaks of a “France of a thousand years”. The possible candidate Z is a professor of history, geography, expert in drug trafficking. All at the service of one being: France. He, the former political journalist says his detestation of current elected officials and that of America which has just forced Australia to break its contract to purchase submarines. “We tell you all the time that France is zero, but she is the only one to fully master all the parts of this kind of machine.” Toulon applauds. Zemmour is in the countryside.
All in his mouth is nothing but the forgotten, sacked, trampled grandeur of France. Marc had left the fitness room opposite the convention center an hour earlier. 34 years old, former soldier, he believes in this true false candidate who says “truths which one can understand and which make us proud to be French”. Below, on the port, two veiled women are sitting on a bench, facing the ferry leaving for Corsica.
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In the room of the Neptune, Eric Zemmour speaks like a savior, lambasting the media and the Superior council of audio-visual which forced him to leave the antenna of the news channel Cnews. He defends “the heterosexual white man”, besieged by the “cancel culture”. Zemmour’s world is a global decline chaos from which France must urgently extricate itself at all costs, à la Trump. Haro on the Democratic President: “You wanted Biden, you got him… and he hates us”.
The equation is simple. She defends France in the “de Gaulle” style, against these “feminist values that corrode authority.” When all others, or almost all, are “traitors.”
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