Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
FIGAROVOX. - By relaunching the debate on first names, is Éric Zemmour trying to present himself as a disruptive candidate?
Benjamin MOREL. -
Not sure whether it is first the break that makes the usefulness for him of this position. On this theme, as on the role of women in society, Éric Zemmour seems very much in the minority. Any sane communication advisor would advise him to ignore this type of hobby, especially since he does not need it to exist in the media.
However, it is also a speech he has been making for years. Whether we approve of it or that it rejects us, we must give credit to Eric Zemmour for consistency and conviction. And this is the political force of these words. Strategically, they shouldn't be held, but they still are, because for him ideas seem to trump strategy. This is a potentially explosive posture. We were living in a deep political crisis and the electorate was disappointed by the renouncements of its leaders. Currently, the LR candidates are entering an escalation, as agreed as it is free, of proposals on sovereignty and immigration. Who can think that with an elected right-wing candidate a referendum will be held on migration policy when it isis formally constitutionally impossible and materially very constrained by treaties? Who can think that, the former elected European Commissioner Michel Barnier, he will put Europe in crisis by contesting the competence of the CJEU and the ECHR? While Marine Le Pen has given up a large part of her program since 2017, how to consider that she launches a standoff with the judges and Europe, yet, according to her, previously necessary for the application of her project ? Faced with such strategic posturing, Eric Zemmour camps a provocative, but disarming radicalism, which puts his rivals at odds. Words seem to regain weight and foreshadow a policy. In a time of deep crisis where voters no longer believe in public speech, such a stance can be devastating.
As Trump has succeeded in embodying the successful entrepreneur in America's eyes, Zemmour has taken the position of the intellectual who resolves to action in the face of the adversity of the century.
Benjamin Morel
If by chance he had his sponsorships, can he be considered a “French Trump”?
Comparison is not right.
The Trump phenomenon is characteristic of American society, of its deep, structural and subconscious identity.
French society is very different.
Beyond a form of radicalism, which forces his opponents to condemn, and therefore to position themselves in relation to him, Eric Zemmour is hardly comparable to Trump.
This is also a way of understanding the reasons for its success.
Why Zemmour? Why not Onfray, Ménard, Raoult or Hanouna? First, there is a question of ethos. As Trump has succeeded in embodying the successful entrepreneur in America's eyes, Zemmour has taken the position of the intellectual who resolves to action in the face of the adversity of the century. This narrative is powerful, because it is very adapted to the national political culture. It should then be noted that Eric Zemmour is undoubtedly the politician, since he must now be qualified as such, who, with Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, best understood the political foundations of the country. Each draws very different programs and positions from it.
However, all three of them understood that France was first and foremost a State which had constituted itself as a Nation. Becoming head of state means embodying the latter's power as an instrument of political action. It is not, especially not, to manage, it is to project. It is putting at the heart of his discourse not so much a program as the reconquest of a collective capacity to act on reality (through Europe for Macron, the institutional and social revolution for Mélenchon, the return to a form of Gaullo). Bonapartism for Zemmour). For their part, the right and the PS have become unions of local elected officials and economic social relays dreaming only of limiting and restricting the state. EELV for its part is viscerally resistant to power. There remains the RN, who does not really know where to be;Proof of this is the emphasis on the notion of freedom when its electorate is first in demand for authority. On his electoral segment, Zemmour is therefore the only one to offer a coherent story of a return to politics.
If Eric Zemmour's strategy may bite some of the middle and upper classes, the very “liberal national” orientation that he seems to want to give to his campaign, and to which his entourage seems to attest, could well prevent him from attract more widely.
Benjamin Morel
Are Eric Zemmour's very divisive proposals a way to polarize the debate around his person? Can this strategy prove to be a winner?
Let's say that if it undeniably represents an originality that can help launch a dynamic, it also limits its scope. This type of comment seems to me very much in the minority in public opinion. Keeping them is therefore to bet that a substantial part of your own potential electorate is able to override… therefore, to give them strong guarantees on the rest.
We must believe that Eric Zemmour wishes to achieve an electoral synthesis between the patriotic bourgeoisie and the popular class on the model of the former RPR. It is not that simple, because Gaullism carried a strong political identity which united sometimes conflicting interests. If Eric Zemmour's strategy may bite some of the middle and upper classes, the very “liberal national” orientation that he seems to want to give to his campaign, and to which his entourage seems to attest, could well prevent him from attract more widely. To exceed 10%, you probably have to be a little less Marion Maréchal and a little more Arnaud Montebourg. In the Ipsos barometer on French fractures published in September 2021, the future of the social system is what worries the French most (46%),in front of more identity questions. The proletarians certainly have a homeland, they also have a stomach and credits to repay.