The exercise will have been a show of force.
During his stopover in Isère, this Friday, it is on one of his cardinal themes that Eric Zemmour decided to dwell: the rearmament of the State and the reaffirmation of his authority.
As a nod to the former city councilor of the neighboring Lyon metropolis, Gérard Collomb.
This Minister of the Interior of Emmanuel Macron who, during his resignation, had warned against a France
"no longer side by side but face to face."
It is in any case
"against each other"
that pressed, this weekend, followers and curious in the municipal gymnasium of Charvieu-Chavagneux.
To discover
Presidential 2022: where are the candidates in the polls?
Read also Eric Zemmour targets hunters, Marine Le Pen coaxes animalists
All, to listen to the essayist speak in what had all the finery of a presidential campaign rally.
"It's gaining momentum,"
admits one of his advisers with a broad smile.
The thousand seats were not enough to accommodate the nearly two thousand people present.
Including, in particular, a few local figures who have resigned from the National Rally and close to Marion Maréchal: Agnès Marion, Thibaut Monnier or Antoine Mellies, chief of staff to the mayor of the city.
It is precisely at the invitation of the city councilor Les Républicains of the commune of some 10,000 souls, that this time the author of
France has not said its last word
. Mayor since 1983 and former vice-president of the department, Gérard Dezempte warms the room:
“Whether it is by elected officials from the right or from the left, we French have been deceived for more than 40 years. Therein lies the secret of the success of your literary and political tour […] You can count on my support. ”
A decision matured after the decision of Laurent Wauquiez not to run for president, confides the mayor, and the lack of affinity with the other contenders of his political family.
When you can do urban rodeos in the heart of Lyon with complete impunity, it's because the state has failed in its mission.
"
Eric Zemmour
On the platform, Eric Zemmour electrifies the assembly by drawing up the observation of a state's decay:
“When we can do urban rodeos in the heart of Lyon with complete impunity, it is because the state has failed in his mission. When we can attack French people dozens of times and still be free, the state has given up. When we can put a price on the head of the police and call for the rape of policewomen, it is because the state is no longer scary! ”
An outing greeted by the now traditional
"President Zemmour"
and applause from the front rows of the former head of the Lyonnaise Judicial Police, Michel Neyret.
"I come to listen to it. I am a potential support. What he says about the
state authority speaks to me , ”he
confides to
Figaro.
Read also Eric Zemmour, the phenomenon: will it go to the end?
To
"cure"
the State of its weaknesses, the essayist prescribed to free it on the one hand from the
"normative swamp"
in which it is drowning
,
thanks to a
"high commissioner for administrative simplification, directly attached to the Elysium".
But by also calling on its representatives to assume all their power:
"We do not reproach our elites for having power, we are reproaching them for having none.
To have abdicated in front of Europe, in front of the fear of political correctness, in front of the bureaucratic one.
Before minorities, before judges, before the media ”,
he lists as part of the room warms up not being able to see their champion close enough due to the world like journalists' cameras.
After having spoken out for the return of the accumulation of mandates, in favor of a questioning of decentralization as for a reestablishment of the prefectural body, the essayist who aspires not
"to save the Republic but to save France"
called for
"to return to the sources of Gaullism to remake the Republic the great tool of power in the service of France."
Thirty-five minutes of closed speech, for the first time at the initiative of the tribune, by a Marseillaise.
A way to materialize a little more the imminent end of his transformation from author to candidate.
