THE NEW YORK TIMES: Éric Zemmour has adopted imagery reminiscent of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader. But his call for reborn glory for France is sharply at odds with the realities of the country today.
PARIS — The retro choreography was heavy-handed, its intent obvious: Éric Zemmour in a dark tie, eyes averted from the camera, reading into an old-fashioned microphone from sheets of paper, just like Charles de Gaulle in his famous speech from London on June 18, 1940, when he called for the liberation of a fallen France.
Mr. Zemmour is not a towering general, and France is not on its knees. But Mr. Zemmour, the far-right polemicist who this week announced his run for next year’s presidential election, understands the power of provocative imagery. Effrontery and scandal have propelled his outsider candidacy.
His campaign-launching video was a nationalistic call for reborn French glory. From Joan of Arc to the singer Johnny Hallyday, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Brigitte Bardot, from Voltaire to Versailles, from Notre Dame to village church bells, it took viewers on a tour of Mr. Zemmour’s imaginary France.
The France that — in the telling of this Jewish journalist of North African descent whose family arrived in France 70 years ago — existed before immigrants, Muslim veils, vandalism and mealy-mouthed elites led the country to its most recent strange defeat. » | Roger Cohen | Saturday, December 4, 2021
