“I just hallucinated!
“Randomly during his bus trip this Monday morning, Grégory, an executive in a company, discovered while passing Boulevard Haussmann, in Paris, a section of wall covered with posters bearing the effigy of Eric Zemmour.
Illustrated with a neat photo of the CNews polemicist, they borrow in every way the codes of electoral propaganda.
This is also the meaning of this poster campaign, stamped "Zemmour president".
Read also Eric Zemmour has an electoral potential of 18%
In front of the CNews premises where the editorialist works, in the streets of Lyon, Limoges or in rural towns like Saint-Rambert-en-Bugey (
Editor's note
, a town of 2300 souls in the Ain) ... Monday morning, the face of the columnist, convicted of incitement to hatred, is displayed throughout France.
“But who is behind these collages?
»Grégory, the Parisian passer-by, wonders.
"Sympathizers?
Zemmour himself?
In reality, the initiative emanates from the Friends of Eric Zemmour, constituted as a party, at the origin of the collage operation.
The posters took place on the walls and on the panels of the recently passed regional elections.
The outcome of this election, not very favorable to the National Rally (RN), leaves "a space" for this potential "new" candidate of the right, one would like to believe on the side of the new pro-Zemmour party.
“More than 1,000 municipalities” affected by the operation
In total, “500 activists mobilized, 90 departments (
Editor's note
, out of 95 in mainland France) and more than 1,000 municipalities were affected,” claim the Friends of Eric Zemmour in a press release.
To do this, the party cooperated with associations also calling for a candidacy from the star columnist of channel number 16. “I got up at 4 am to stick to Paris and Île-de-France, others even earlier ”, slips into a smile Stanislas Rigault, member of the Generation Z movement, particularly active on social networks to wear the colors of the right embodied by Eric Zemmour.
Zemmour's face is displayed everywhere in France.
#DemainAvecZemmour https://t.co/ytjJ0sSPN6
- Samuel Lafont (@Samuel_Lafont) June 28, 2021
If a candidacy of the polemicist is desired by several groups and associations, it is not yet openly claimed by the main interested party.
Pierre Meurin claims not to have had any direct feedback from Eric Zemmour - whom he claims to have met “once” - regarding this poster campaign.
“I know it touches him but I'm not on social media, I don't know if he reacted,” he says.
On his Twitter account, the future potential presidential candidate sports in any case the same photo as the one deployed for the collage operation.
"Do not skimp on what constitutes the real country"
The big bonding session took place in the dead of night, with a desire to reach out to the entire population the day after an election which raised abstentionism high.
"We stuck in the metropolises but also in France yellow vests, sub-prefectures, rural municipalities", welcomes Pierre Meurin.
Former director of studies at Issep, the school of Marion Maréchal, the latter coordinated the operation.
With a slogan: "Do not skimp on what constitutes the real country".
Read also Presidential 2022: Bigard, Hanouna, Zemmour ... "The temptation of the clown" or the hypothesis of a candidate "outside the system"
The collectors did not skimp since the number of posters printed was 10,000. Their development and printing were managed by the funding association (
Editor's note
, created at the end of April, according to the Médiacités information site) of party The Friends of Eric Zemmour, which "has constituted a war chest from small donors", indicates Pierre Meurin.
On social networks, passers-by are wondering.
Instagram screenshot
The work emerges from "one or two graphic designers and a printer who lent themselves to the game," explains the latter.
The origin of the photo, it questions.
"I believe it is a copyright free photo that was sent to me and that I validated," says Pierre Meurin without much conviction.
A short search allows to find the origin of the photograph, signed in fact Joël Saget, photographer on behalf of AFP.
Contacted, the latter did not respond to our requests.
A drum beating pre-campaign
This collage operation marks the launch of a campaign that its carriers want hyperactive, even before a possible formalization by Eric Zemmour.
It is accompanied by the slogan #DemainavecZemmour, carried this Monday at the top of the hashtags circulating on Twitter and shared by the various movements that are favorable to it.
A merger of different support groups, like Generation Z, with the Friends of Eric Zemmour does not seem to be excluded.
"We are already working together," argues on both sides.
Grégory, the Parisian passer-by who seems little to taste this pro-Zemmour impulse, judges the poster "half-electoral, half-freaking" and wonders about its legitimacy "when he is not even a candidate".
Solène *, who hijacked the poster on her Twitter account with small emojis evoking disgust, "hopes that all of this will be quickly torn off".
However, the latter should be prepared to see the face of Eric Zemmour bloom everywhere.
"Similar actions will be carried out in the coming days", promise Les Amis d'Eric Zemmour.
