Former French presidential candidate “French Trump” and “friend of Russia” 63-year-old journalist and polemicist Eric Zemmour has created his political movement called “Reconquista”. The right-wing populist has made no secret of his goals to fight illegal migration, and in recent months has gained a lot of popularity thanks to this, among other things.
According to him, Reconquista is the only party that is both anti-immigration and against the ideology of “wokeism” (woke), which elevates sexual and racial minorities on a pedestal. At the same time, our party takes a right-wing stance on economic issues. In truth, we are the party that is most compatible with all European right-wing parties. Why? Because these parties have gradually organized themselves in a new way and have been able to focus on the above-mentioned three topics.”
“I want to systematically expel everyone who is illegally on our soil. I want to expel foreign unemployed people if they can’t find a place in six months. Other democracies do this, why can’t we?” – Zemmour states.
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Zemmour is a strong critic of immigration from Muslim countries and has repeatedly said that the massive influx of migrants into the country must be stopped. Two years ago, a court sentenced him to a 3,000 euro fine for inciting hatred on religious grounds. Zemmour said at the time that French Muslims live by their own civil code and it’s Koran, in areas of their compact residence they set their own laws, and as a result, native French people flee from there.
At the beginning of last year’s presidential campaign, Zemmour said he was joining to fight against the “great replacement” of native Europeans by newcomers, and against the Islamization of France. It turns out that France is not alone in this fight, as immigration and the Islamization of all of Europe are the greatest problems of the 21st century. In fact, one continent is flowing into another, namely, Africa is “flowing” into Europe, slowly replacing it. Eric Zemmour is accused of challenging a “proven crime against humanity”. The reason was his remarks about French Marshal Pétain, who collaborated with the Nazis. In 2019, Zemmour claimed that he “saved” French Jews during World War II.
In many ways, his position is close to that of the leader of the “National Union” Marine Le Pen, but Zemmour has recently criticized her for a sharp bias towards the center, which is understandable since Zemmour has the same right-wing electorate and it is in his interest to “bite” part of it, because on the right flank the competition for not just the right, but the far-right electorate has intensified very strongly. He accuses Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Union, of opposing this alliance of the right and supporting the so-called “alliance of patriots” with the left.
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On foreign policy, Zemmour favors lifting sanctions against Russia, believes France should not close itself off from Moscow, and cites General de Gaulle’s slogan of a Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals.”
He appeals to conservative values and is primarily interested in what is happening inside France itself. The statements about the “Atlantic to the Urals” and the lifting of sanctions are roughly the same card that French right-wing or far-right politicians often play, hoping to appeal primarily to a domestic constituency that opposes globalization, stronger ties with the United States, and so on. Zemmour has a scandalous flavor, his ratings have risen recently, but all his statements are pure populism. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, Erik Zemmour considers NATO responsible for the bloodshed.
In the elections to the European Parliament, the leader of the “Reconquista” delegated the entire representation of Marion Maréchal, who now omits part of her surname Le Pen, and is the granddaughter of the far-right patriarch Jean-Marie and niece of Marine Le Pen, who left for the occasion the surname of her stepfather who raised her.
“I have decided to entrust Ms. Marion Maréchal to head the party list for the European Parliament elections. I hope that she will be supported by the youth of all the right-wing parties that supported me during the presidential elections. I believe that they will get the highest possible percentage of votes” – appealed to his voters Zemmour. “Marion Mareschal is a talented woman. The entire young generation of my party also has great abilities and I believe they will be able to defend my concept of Europe, my concept of civilization. As chairman of the party, I will stand by them. Of course, I will campaign. It is possible to campaign without being registered as a candidate, to defend your beliefs and your concept of Europe. You don’t have to be at the head of the list to do that.”
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Marion Maréchal, granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen and niece of Marine Le Pen, has long been a non-activist in the family’s National Front party. During the last presidential election of 2022, she announced her support for the far-right writer Eric Zemmour, president of the “Reconquête!” party, and is now the leader of the list. In this way, the Clan Le Pen osprey has let its tentacles into the mass of the more radical electorate.
Recently, Maréchal has regularly expressed support for Ukraine, which sounds strange coming from a leader who has always actively supported Russia and traveled to annexed Crimea. The imp is, as usual, in the details. “We can wish victory for Ukraine but also not want to wage war on its behalf,” she says. The red lines are troops in Ukraine, Ukraine’s EU membership, and its integration into NATO. She calls Ukraine’s future integration into the EU death for French agriculture.
As in Germany, Putin’s best friends are “irreconcilable” but equally “thinking,” Putin’s friends on the far-right and far-left spectrum, carrying Russian narratives into European society, organizing roundtables, conferences and debates to promote Kremlin rhetoric in their beloved France.