David Desgouilles is a columnist for
Marianne
.
He has published
Dérapage
(ed.
Du
Rocher, 2017) and
Their Lost Wars
, (ed. Du Rocher, 2019).
FIGAROVOX. - In an interview with the JDD, Gérard Larcher said about Eric Zemmour: "
It is a mirror that millions of French people hold out to us, who reproach us for our renouncements, in particular on the issue of migration, insecurity and identity. There would be neither the Le Pen phenomenon nor the Zemmour phenomenon if we had better dealt with these questions
”
.
Do you think he is right?
David DESGOUILLES. -
I wouldn't want to be disparaging with Gérard Larcher, but I have the impression that he is breaking down an open door. Obviously, if all went well, the protesting parties or candidates would have less echo in the population. Obviously, if the right had had excellent results, particularly on migration, security and identity issues, Nicolas Sarkozy would have been re-elected in 2012 and would still be in power today. The French people are not a supporter of the single mandate at all costs. We can see it in local communities. The mayors or the presidents of regional or departmental executives benefit most of the time from the outgoing bonus.
Precisely, on the security and identity issues in question, the observation established in 2021 by the President of the Senate somewhat resembles the famous phrase of Laurent Fabius in the 80s when the National Front vote emerged: “
Jean-Marie Le Pen poses de good questions even if it does not provide the right answers
”.
So, indeed, the President of the Senate is right, but there is nothing to be proud of that he is thirty-five years behind the one who occupied Matignon between 1984 and 1986.
More than the compass, I would say that Eric Zemmour, like Emmanuel Macron since 2017, but on his right flank, acts as a revealer of LR's ideological contradictions.
David Desgouilles
Unlike Éric Ciotti, the President of the Senate prefers to vote Emmanuel Macron than Eric Zemmour. Has the polemicist become the compass of the right?
More than the compass, I would say that Eric Zemmour, like Emmanuel Macron since 2017, but on his right flank, acts as a revealer of LR's ideological contradictions, and of his inability to decide on many questions including those we have mentioned above, but also those relating to European construction.
As long as there was only Emmanuel Macron on the centrist flank, those who had left LR could pass for opportunists or even traitors, like Édouard Philippe, Bruno Le Maire and all those who joined the new majority.
As long as there was only Marine Le Pen on the other flank, there was hardly any risk of loss.
There were a few, like Thierry Mariani or Jean-Paul Garraud, but ultimately it remains very limited, because the Le Pen surname remained a drag.
But now that there is Eric Zemmour on this side, we realize that the problem is really intrinsic to LR.
There is certainly a specificity with Eric Zemmour because there is no example in the Fifth Republic of such a rapid rise in opinion studies.
David Desgouilles
Six months before the presidential election, can the momentum in favor of Eric Zemmour collapse? Can we relive the Balladur-Chirac duel?
An autumn dynamic can always stop, and there are precedents in the Fifth Republic, that of Jean-Pierre Chevènement being the most often cited.
Most voters did not really enter the presidential campaign until February 1995. It was also at that time that Jacques Chirac had caught up with Édouard Balladur when he was only measured at 13. % in the polls on All Saints' Day 1994. Similarly, seven years later, Jean-Pierre Chevénement is on the rise in the fall, and he collapses from February.
There is certainly a specificity with Eric Zemmour because there is no example in the Fifth Republic of such a rapid rise in opinion studies. Is this intensity the guarantee of a solid phenomenon or, on the contrary, is it the sign that movements of opinion are so changeable that they can turn around so quickly? We won't know for a few weeks. It is impossible to be certain about this.
Your comparison with the Balladur-Chirac duel is however stimulating: who plays the role of Balladur?
Who plays the role of Chirac?
Who plays the role of Delors, who threw in the towel in December 1994?
Obviously, as we know the end of the 1995 story, everyone wants to be Chirac.
Christian Jacob, Chiraquien before the Eternal, thinks that it will be the candidate nominated by the members of LR.
Marine Le Pen thinks that it will be her, reinforced by those who accuse her of "chiraquisation".
As for Eric Zemmour, he keeps repeating that he embodies the RPR of yesteryear, founded by the same Jacques Chirac.
The only one who should really be worried about this comparison is Emmanuel Macron, because in the lead in the polls like Édouard Balladur at the same time.
