VILLEPINTE, France — The speech, riddled with assaults on the information media, elites and immigrants, with a fiery orator whipping up 1000’s of flag-waving supporters, was paying homage to a Donald J. Trump marketing campaign cease from years previous.
However the scene was in France, final weekend, the place Éric Zemmour, the polarizing far-right polemicist who has scrambled French politics, launched his presidential marketing campaign with a rally in entrance of 1000’s of ardent supporters.
“On est chez nous!” — “That is our residence!” — they chanted in a cavernous conference middle stuffed with spotlights, audio system and big screens in Villepinte, a suburb northeast of Paris.
At one level through the rally, antiracism activists had been attacked within the form of brawl not often seen at French political occasions. Earlier within the day, followers booed a tv information crew, forcing it to be briefly evacuated, and several other journalists reported being insulted and crushed.
The end result of Mr. Zemmour’s marketing campaign stays unclear 4 months forward of France’s presidential election, with President Emmanuel Macron nonetheless forward within the polls, and fierce competitors rising from the fitting. However the rally provided a glimpse of the place the election may head, and which Trumpian tones it may take.
In contrast to Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the normal far proper, who has lengthy sought success by softening her party’s far-right views, Mr. Zemmour has guess {that a} full-on promotion of his reactionary concepts can gasoline his rise.
He has achieved so by mastering the codes of social and information media, and by interesting to a considerably wealthier and extra educated base than the normal far proper. Latest polls recommend this method has labored; about 15 percent of French voters say they intend to vote for him within the first spherical of voting.
“He’s the one who breaks a dam,” stated Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science on the College of Good. Voters who as soon as balked at supporting Ms. Le Pen have now embraced his extra extremist concepts, he stated.
However this quest to stake out a place on the intense proper may additionally backfire, as proven at Sunday’s rally, when dozens of his supporters attacked antiracism activists. The violent brawl may stain his picture and undermine his makes an attempt to broaden his electoral base, in line with political analysts.
Nonetheless, as with Mr. Trump, no scandal thus far has achieved any lasting harm to Mr. Zemmour’s political ambitions as he faucets into widespread fears that French id is being whittled away by immigration. These fears have been heightened by a variety of terrorist assaults lately, some dedicated by the kids of immigrants.
The gang, of about 12,000 those who gathered within the Villepinte conference middle, mirrored among the forces which have fueled the candidate’s meteoric rise — higher middle-class voters and a few segments of an informed, prosperous youth.
Males near retirement age in looking jackets and loafers waved French flags and cheered alongside younger folks wearing crisp polo shirts; many displayed Roman Catholic crosses round their necks.
“Zemmour is somebody who can truly make our concepts triumph and save France,” stated Marc Perreti, a 19-year-old pupil from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a rich suburb of Paris.
In distinction with the prosperous voters seen at Mr. Zemmour’s rally, Ms. Le Pen’s assist comes primarily from the working class. A latest study confirmed Mr. Zemmour scoring nicely among the many higher center class, at 16 p.c in comparison with 6 p.c for Ms. Le Pen.
There was widespread nodding on the rally when Mr. Zemmour talked of France’s “nice downgrading, with the impoverishment of the French, the decline of our energy and the collapse of our college.” And there have been loud cheers when he talked about “the good substitute, with the Islamization of France, mass immigration and fixed insecurity.”
The so-called great replacement, a contentious concept that claims the West’s inhabitants is being changed by immigrants, has been cited by white supremacists in mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex.
However Sophie Michel, a former historical past trainer and a mom of 9, stated she believed the idea, pointing to the rising variety of immigrant households residing in her condominium constructing in western Paris.
“We’re the final white folks there,” she stated, “that is for actual.”
The title of Mr. Zemmour’s new get together, “Reconquest,” evokes the centuries-long interval generally known as the Reconquista, when Christian forces drove Muslim rulers from the Iberian Peninsula.
Two of Ms. Michel’s kids additionally attended the rally, together with a whole lot of younger folks. Hortense Bergerault, 17, stated she adopted Mr. Zemmour on Instagram, the place he has practically 150,000 followers, rating solely behind Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen among the many presidential candidates. “I’ve many pals who’re actually into it,” she stated.
Mr. Martigny, the political scientist, stated that Mr. Zemmour was the product of “tradition wars” that had step by step unfold far-right concepts throughout society, particularly by Fox-style news networks, clearing “an area for a Trumpian participant within the French political life.”
“They’ve understood that there isn’t a lasting political victory and not using a prior cultural victory,” Mr. Martigny stated of Mr. Zemmour’s group.
This cultural win was evident in Villepinte, the place many supporters referred to Mr. Zemmour’s books and TV appearances as eye-opening experiences. Some wore baseball caps studying “Ben voyons!” — a rejoinder that Mr. Zemmour typically makes use of to dismiss criticism, and which roughly interprets to “Oh, come on!” The gang even chanted the phrase when Mr. Zemmour, talking from his lectern, mocked these accusing him of being a fascist.
Antoine Diers, a spokesman for Mr. Zemmour’s marketing campaign, stated that though France and the US had been two completely different nations, they’d “clearly” checked out Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential run “as a result of it was successful.”
Raphaël Llorca, a French communication professional and member of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès analysis institute, stated Mr. Zemmour had efficiently waged a “battle of the cool” designed to popularize his excessive concepts and “cut back the price of adherence” to the far proper.
His YouTube campaign-launching video, riddled with cultural references, has drawn practically 3 million viewers — proof of his command of popular culture codes, Mr. Llorca stated.
“The cool is a technique to defuse and neutralize in any other case extraordinarily violent” concepts, he added.
In October, Mr. Zemmour stated his success would rely upon his capacity to attraction to each the conservative, bourgeois citizens and that of the Yellow Vests, the largely working-class motion that protested towards financial injustice that Ms. Le Pen has long courted.
Whether or not he can obtain that balancing act is way from clear, as proven by the attendance on the rally. The principle financial proposal he outlined final weekend — slashing enterprise taxes — is unlikely to talk to working-class voters.
Mr. Zemmour’s theatrical entrance into the conference middle, to the sound of dramatic music, additionally did little to eclipse the truth that he has to this point did not garner assist from any main political determine, or get together. This stays a serious distinction from Mr. Trump, who may rely on the highly effective Republican Celebration and strong monetary backing.
Mr. Zemmour stated he was the goal of the media and the elites. He praised the group earlier than him for standing as much as these assaults. “The political phenomenon of those rallies, it’s not me, it’s you!” he shouted.
However a few of his supporters may additionally show to be his best legal responsibility.
Halfway by his speech, dozens of sturdy militants threw punches at a number of activists from SOS Racisme, an antiracism group, who had stood on chairs on the rally and revealed T-shirts spelling out the phrase “NO TO RACISM.”
Prosecutors have opened investigations into the violence, together with one towards a person who lunged at and grabbed Mr. Zemmour as he walked towards the stage.
Mr. Diers, the spokesman, stated the antiracism activists had acted provocatively and that he had known as on supporters “to not use pressure unreasonably.”
Mr. Llorca, the communications professional, stated that with such a polarizing marketing campaign, Mr. Zemmour risked “being overwhelmed” by the extremism of his personal supporters.
The French information media later reported that a few of those that had attacked the antiracism activists had been neo-Nazi militants. As they chased down the activists towards the doorway corridor, carrying black mufflers that hid their faces, they had been stopped by a safety employees member.
“Thanks for being there,” he instructed them. “You probably did the job!”
