French far-right pundit launches presidential bid
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Published: 04:11 PM,Nov 30,2021 | EDITED : 08:11 PM,Nov 30,2021
French far-right media pundit Eric Zemmour announces his candidacy for the 2022 Presidential election in a video broadcast on social media in Paris. - AFP
PARIS: French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour announced on Tuesday that he will run for president in next year's election, staking his claim in a video peppered with anti-immigrant rhetoric and warnings France must be saved from decline.
Zemmour, 63, is the most stridently anti-Islam and anti-migrant of the challengers seeking to unseat President Emmanuel Macron in the April 2022 vote.
His formal entry into the race -- anticipated for weeks -- adds another element on the far-right to the campaign, alongside its traditional leader Marine Le Pen. But it remains to be seen if he will maintain the momentum of recent weeks.
He said he had joined the race 'so that our daughters don't have to wear headscarves and our sons don't have to be submissive'.
The former TV commentator made his announcement in a YouTube video, which showed him sitting at a desk reading his speech into an old-style microphone, an image reminiscent of General De Gaulle's famous 1940 call to the French to join the Resistance against Nazi Germany.
Accusing Macron of failing to deliver on his promise of change, Zemmour, who has been nicknamed the 'French Trump' said: 'It is no longer the time to reform France, but to save it.
'That's why I have decided to stand in the presidential election.' In the nine-minute YouTube video, he warned that the France 'of Joan of Arc and Louis XIV' and 'of Notre-Dame and village churches' was disappearing', he said.
'You feel like foreigners in your own country,' he told voters in the speech, which was interspersed with images depicting a country beset by violence and social unrest contrasted with a more glorious past.
'Immigration is not the cause of all our problems but it aggravates them all,' he declared.
He added that, if elected, he would banish gender studies from French schools, slash the public debt and win back France's sovereignty 'from European technocrats and judges'.
The son of Algerian Jewish parents who migrated to France, Zemmour aims to outshine National Rally (RN) leader Le Pen in next April's election to set up a second-round duel against Macron.
Besides Le Pen, he also faces competition on the right from the centre-right Republicans (LR), who will choose this weekend among five candidates running in a party primary.
Zemmour is due to hold his first official campaign meeting on Sunday morning in Paris. Anti-fascism activists and unions had pledged to mark the occasion with a 'silence Zemmour' protest.
Zemmour is one of France's best-known commentators, making his name by warning in best-selling books about the 'colonisation' of the country by Muslims, whose religion he views as 'incompatible' with French values.
Acid-tongued, intense and with two convictions for hate speech, he wants to send immigrants who 'do not assimilate' back to their country of origin and ban French people from giving their children foreign-sounding first names, such as Mohammed.
Opinion polls in September and October briefly showed him as being the best-placed candidate to topple Macron, who has yet to declare his bid for a second term but is widely expected to do so early next year. But Zemmour's momentum appeared to fizzle in recent weeks. - AFP
Zemmour, 63, is the most stridently anti-Islam and anti-migrant of the challengers seeking to unseat President Emmanuel Macron in the April 2022 vote.
His formal entry into the race -- anticipated for weeks -- adds another element on the far-right to the campaign, alongside its traditional leader Marine Le Pen. But it remains to be seen if he will maintain the momentum of recent weeks.
He said he had joined the race 'so that our daughters don't have to wear headscarves and our sons don't have to be submissive'.
The former TV commentator made his announcement in a YouTube video, which showed him sitting at a desk reading his speech into an old-style microphone, an image reminiscent of General De Gaulle's famous 1940 call to the French to join the Resistance against Nazi Germany.
Accusing Macron of failing to deliver on his promise of change, Zemmour, who has been nicknamed the 'French Trump' said: 'It is no longer the time to reform France, but to save it.
'That's why I have decided to stand in the presidential election.' In the nine-minute YouTube video, he warned that the France 'of Joan of Arc and Louis XIV' and 'of Notre-Dame and village churches' was disappearing', he said.
'You feel like foreigners in your own country,' he told voters in the speech, which was interspersed with images depicting a country beset by violence and social unrest contrasted with a more glorious past.
'Immigration is not the cause of all our problems but it aggravates them all,' he declared.
He added that, if elected, he would banish gender studies from French schools, slash the public debt and win back France's sovereignty 'from European technocrats and judges'.
The son of Algerian Jewish parents who migrated to France, Zemmour aims to outshine National Rally (RN) leader Le Pen in next April's election to set up a second-round duel against Macron.
Besides Le Pen, he also faces competition on the right from the centre-right Republicans (LR), who will choose this weekend among five candidates running in a party primary.
Zemmour is due to hold his first official campaign meeting on Sunday morning in Paris. Anti-fascism activists and unions had pledged to mark the occasion with a 'silence Zemmour' protest.
Zemmour is one of France's best-known commentators, making his name by warning in best-selling books about the 'colonisation' of the country by Muslims, whose religion he views as 'incompatible' with French values.
Acid-tongued, intense and with two convictions for hate speech, he wants to send immigrants who 'do not assimilate' back to their country of origin and ban French people from giving their children foreign-sounding first names, such as Mohammed.
Opinion polls in September and October briefly showed him as being the best-placed candidate to topple Macron, who has yet to declare his bid for a second term but is widely expected to do so early next year. But Zemmour's momentum appeared to fizzle in recent weeks. - AFP