The far-right pundit who has emerged as a central figure in the French presidential election race turned his fire on Britain and America yesterday, to the delight of his supporters at a rally in Normandy, reports The Times.
Éric Zemmour described the English as “our greatest enemies for a thousand years” while taking a swipe at the D-Day landings that freed France from Nazi occupation during the Second World War. “D-Day was an enterprise of liberation but also of occupation and colonisation by the Americans,” he said.
Zemmour, a journalist and polemicist with no political experience, was speaking in Rouen after the publication of a poll suggesting that he could secure a place in the second-round run-off vote against President Macron in April. He has yet to announce formally that he is running for the presidency, but his presence is sowing fear among France’s established politicians, notably Marine Le Pen, his far-right rival who leads the National Rally.
She has seen her support wane as Zemmour’s has increased, to the point that she fears she may not make it past the first round of voting. Members of the opposition centre-right Republicans party, which has yet to choose its candidate, have similar concerns over the stooping figure who has been described as the French Donald Trump.
Zemmour, 63, believes he could cause the greatest political upset in French electoral history, casting himself as the only public figure capable of drawing support from both “the working classes and from bourgeois patriots”.