It is a thick blue Z, surrounded by two yellow and white circles, which lies dormant on a "site under construction".
The “jesignepourzemmour.fr” platform in support of the CNews polemicist - whose existence was revealed by an investigation by L'Express - will be launched in two days.
Its logo is a direct reference to that of Captain America, the series from the Marvel universe, and its goal is clear: to make Eric Zemmour the hero of the identity right and sovereignist for 2022. Another ephemeral political fantasy that abounds every year pre-presidential?
At the origin "with a few friends" of this initiative, the mayor of Orange (Vaucluse), Jacques Bompard, has him, very want to believe it.
"Eric Zemmour's candidacy is the only one capable of changing the dramatic situation in our country", argues the founder of the Southern League (ex-FN, extreme right), who no longer believes in Marine Le Pen.
So he sees elected officials, wants to create the conditions that would encourage the very media columnist to get started.
Asked about his possible presidential ambition on January 20 on Paris Première, Zemmour himself skilfully refrained from closing the door: “It is not here and today that I am going to say it.
But in the facts?
The platform in support of the controversial CNews with its logo inspired by Captain America./DR
"This desire is indisputable"
In fact, despite his multiple convictions (incitement to racial discrimination, hatred against Muslims), Eric Zemmour enjoys significant popularity: he is successful in bookstores (500,000 copies of "Suicide Français", then 110 Approximately 000 of "Destin Français", his last) and a hit with its daily show stuck on CNews (some 800,000 viewers on average).
Those who know him assure him: the desire to actively engage in 2022 exists.
“This desire for politics is very old for him,” confides Paul-Marie Couteaux, a sovereignist now in the Christian Democratic Party, and close to Zemmour.
But today, this desire is indisputable.
"He wants to do more than just be a spectator", cautiously sketches Christophe Billan, former president of Sens Commun, who exchanges regularly with him.
But be careful, before seriously considering the big bath, he gauges the water in the footbath.
And in particular inquires about how to obtain the famous 500 sponsorships necessary for an application.
For some time now, he has been actively consulting local elected officials in order to "take the country's temperature," Billan tells us.
Jacques Bompard obviously, Robert Ménard, too, logically.
The mayor of Béziers, apostle of the union of the rights, says of him that he is "the most brilliant of debaters" on the right.
But still ?
Tuesday, it is the mayor of a village of 350 inhabitants who came to see him in Paris.
"He listened to me, asked questions, how I feel about the population," says Eric Viaud, elected in La Bussière (Vienne).
"Addict to his show" on CNews, it is Viaud, chairman of the confidential "committee of mayors for the common good" saying he wanted to defend "French civilization", who had requested Zemmour.
And says he is ready to support him.
Are many of them having seen the polemicist?
Mystery.
"Little concern" by Marine Le Pen
Zemmour also cultivates links outside France.
On Tuesday again, it was the Hungarian Minister of Labor, Katalin Novak, member of Viktor Orban's conservative party, Fidesz, who welcomed on Twitter a "productive phone call" with the French writer.
Contacted, the entourage of the minister is pleased to exchange with "one of the most famous French polemicists", explaining that they spoke of "family policy".
“What he wants is to be recognized as an equal with Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen.
Not just like a commentator, ”decrypts a connoisseur of this right“ outside the walls ”.
Paul-Marie Couteaux, who has frequented it since 1993, analyzes this desire for politics and recognition as follows: “Perhaps it is the consolation of grief, not to have entered the ENA.
Zemmour had indeed failed the entrance examination.
PODCAST. Eric Zemmour, portrait of a polemicist with political aims
Concretely, it is not said either that his entry on the scene shakes the ballot boxes.
An Ifop study for Current Values lends it an electoral potential of 13% (it is not about voting intentions).
Which is very little.
"We must not confuse audience and voters", recalls the deputy (LR) Julien Aubert, for whom Zemmour is "not a man of action".
"If he went to the end of the story, the most he could do is prevent Marine Le Pen from being in the second round", observes a strategist from the right, who does not see him more than 5% of the votes.
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At the RN, the boss monitors it "with a little concern", we are told, as every time a candidate points to the periphery of his party.
Because any enthusiasm, even episodic, for an alternative to the frontist leader "reveals in hollow a doubt on the candidacy of Marine", underlines an elected official.
Even if nothing will prevent his candidacy, to her.
Praising with Zemmour but rabiboche with Le Pen, Robert Ménard questions: 2022?
"Does he have the means, the networks, the stuff?
"" In politics, you have to add forces.
Its psychology is to be divisive.
He enjoys the division, ”analyzes a close friend of Bruno Retailleau.
The leader of senators LR, himself an aspiring candidate, would have even asked him during a meeting in the Senate: "Do you know what a presidential election is?"
"
Several people explain that this idea of Elysée would have first been planted at the end of 2015. Geoffroy Lejeune, now managing editor of Valeurs Actuelles, publishes a book entitled “An ordinary election”, offering the supreme power to Zemmour.
An idea that no one can imagine escaping from this novel.