Up yours, Zemmour... but firebrand gives as good as he gets

ERIC ZEMMOUR’S journey towards the French presidential elections took a lively turn yesterday as the prospective candidate exchanged middle-finger salutes with a passerby.

Mr Zemmour, who was on a two-day visit to Marseille, was captured in a car by a photographer while returning the offensive gesture received from an unknown woman. For good measure, he told the woman that his finger was designed to go “very deep”.

He later explained to his entourage that the salute “happened on its own”.

The rude gestures came after a walkabout on the streets of the southern port city that had to be cut short due to constant booing.

Mr Zemmour, a Right-wing firebrand who courts controversy, was planning to talk to locals but called off the vox pop after what local press said was less than 15 minutes, after local media reported eggs were thrown, although none hit Mr Zemmour.

He had previously got off the train carrying him to Marseille a stop early in order to avoid a hostile reception. An aide claimed journalists had leaked his itinerary to Left-wing protesters, who were also present outside his hotel and the restaurant where he had dinner.

Mr Zemmour, who has been likened to Donald Trump for his populist politics and controversial statements, said Marseille had been “disintegrated by immigration” and that if nothing was done the whole of France would, in an initial phase, come to resemble the city.

Marseille has been the location for gang violence and, last month, a row over striking binmen.

In a later phase, France was set to look “like Lebanon”, he said, as the Middle Eastern nation suffers acute energy and currency crises. He dismissed claims that Marseille was a cosmopolitan city as “a myth”.

Left-wing media such as France’s Libération newspaper speculated that the Marseille escapade could spell the end of Mr Zemmour’s dramatic rise.

He is expected to officially declare his candidacy for the 2022 presidential election next week and hold a Paris rally early next month.

While his popularity, as indicated by polls, has slipped in recent days, the outcome of next April’s presidential election is still far from certain. The poll will include two rounds of voting, with incumbent Emmanuel Macron expected to make the second round.

Mr Zemmour’s outburst reminded some of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president who famously told a man who refused to shake his hand casse-toi, pauv or “get out of here, a---hole”, during a visit to a farmers’ exhibition in 2008.