After the meeting at Trocadéro, can Éric Zemmour bounce back?

Jean-Philippe Dubrulle is director of studies at Ifop, specializing in political studies and voting intentions.

LE FIGARO.

- At the Trocadéro on March 27, Éric Zemmour gathered tens of thousands of people, and 80,000 people followed his speech on YouTube.

However, can a meeting, on its own, create a dynamic?

Jean-Philippe DUBRULLE.

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Two weeks before the first round, everything is theoretically possible!

In practice, Emmanuel Macron is racing far ahead, despite a slowdown in recent days, and Marine Le Pen is recording remarkably favorable momentum.

Even Jean-Luc Mélenchon rose above Éric Zemmour in the voting intentions of the French, relegating it to a level comparable to that of Valérie Pécresse.

Once this picture has been drawn up ten days before the election, can we expect a dynamic in favor of Éric Zemmour after his show of force this weekend?

First element of response: the previous François Fillon.

After his meeting on March 5, 2017, no momentum in sight, so that he will end the campaign with the same score as that with which he was credited then, between 19 and 20% of the vote.

Read alsoINFO LE FIGARO - "Zemmour, it's not our Trocadéro!"

: the response of seven members of the Republicans

Second part of the answer: Éric Zemmour's decline in the polls occurred thanks to two events, both resulting from the war in Ukraine, at least in part: on the one hand, the pro-Putin discourse of the candidate and, on the other hand, the rise in purchasing power in the concerns of the French – a theme preempted on the right by Marine Le Pen.

With the escape of the latter as a "useful vote" of the radical right, and without aggiornamento of the Zemmour camp on the themes which precipitated its recent fall in the polls, it is difficult to see a dynamic beginning.

Éric Zemmour is his best enemy.

Philippe Dubrulle

The candidate arrived on stage, after a scenography mimicking Emmanuel Macron's march to the Carrousel du Louvre after his victory in 2017. What does this scenography inspire in you?

Should we see a desire to "presidentialize"?

A way to become presidential... or to ape victory on the evening of April 24!

In any case, "presidentialization" is a long-standing problem for Eric Zemmour: if he was able to capture a significant part of the electorate through his diagnosis of current French society, he remains for some of these same voters a sort of free electron struggling to control itself.

Stated in more direct terms, and according to what people likely to vote for him tell us: through his intransigence and what some would call fixations, Éric Zemmour is his greatest enemy.

At a time when the Republican candidate is approaching the home stretch of the campaign with historically low voting intentions,

Conversely, can the "Macron assassin" launched by part of the crowd frighten part of the "elite bloc" for a time tempted by Eric Zemmour?

Definitely yes, and this is an illustration of this description of Éric Zemmour as his own best enemy, when his radicalism becomes a foil for part of the electorate.

It should however be kept in mind that the two sources of the Zemmour electorate come from the “CSP-” of the classic right and the “CSP+” of the National Rally – in other words, not so elite as one might say.

The presidential election will act a recomposition of the right, it is almost certain.

Philippe Dubrulle

If, on the merits, Éric Zemmour unfolded on his classics, without citing any concrete proposal, the founder of Reconquête!

posed as a representative of the "vital vote".

Is playing the "me or chaos" card a strategy that can pay off?

This map is only the continuity of Éric Zemmour's basic proposal, which consists of posing as the ultimate bastion of France's decline.

From there to speak of a “viral vote”, the doubt is allowed, because that supposes the existence of a hidden vote which would not have yet been declared.

On the one hand, it is true that voters are more volatile than ever and can hesitate until the last moment.

In the first round of the 2017 presidential election, 21% of voters had, for example, decided during the last weekend!

But on the other hand, in view of today's polling techniques (via the internet, without an interviewer, therefore without "judgment" at the time of the questioning), a far-right voter has no reason to hide or disguise his vote – it is to

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The presidential election will act a recomposition of the right, it is almost certain.

As such, Éric Zemmour, who aspires to play a pivotal role, cannot afford to insult the future.

He is therefore already seeking to give pledges in favor of a great union of the rights, which he has been defending for years, under his aegis.

These calls from the foot therefore appear less as the beginning of a rally to create success in the presidential election than as the beginnings of the transfer window of the right which will take place before and after the legislative elections.