In France, a Donald Trump-like TV pundit rocks presidential campaign
PARIS — A survivor of the terrible journey to Auschwitz remembered how the youngest wailed. There were 99 children squeezed among
751 adults gasping for air, crazed by thirst and hunger, aboard convoy No. 63 that departed Paris at 10 minutes past midday on Dec. 17, 1943.
The 828 murdered at the death camp from that trainload alone included 3-year-old Francine Baur, her sister Myriam, 9, their brothers Antoine and Pierre, 6 and 10, and their parents Odette and André.
All born in France, their French citizenship proved worthless under France’s wartime Vichy regime that teamed up with the country’s Nazi occupiers and their extermination of Jews.
So when André Baur’s great-nephew, a Paris mayor, was catching up on his Twitter feed recently and saw a claim reported in French media that Adolf Hitler’s Vichy collaborators safeguarded France’s Jews from the Holocaust, he was revolted. Worst still in the eyes of Ariel Weil, mayor of the French capital’s city center, was that the debunked assertion came from a potential contender for the French presidency who is himself Jewish.
That person is Eric Zemmour, a rabble-rousing television pundit and author with repeated convictions for hate speech who is finding fervent audiences for his anti-Islam, anti-immigration invective in the early stages of France’s presidential race. He is packing auditoriums with paying crowds and filling supporters’ heads with visions of a Trump-like leap from small screen to the presidential Elysee Palace when France votes in April.
Although not yet officially declared as a candidate, Zemmour has so far dictated the course and tenor of the campaign. With climbing poll numbers, now consistently in double digits, and a Trump-like knack for generating buzz — recent video of him pointing a sniper rifle at journalists is racking up millions of views — Zemmour is sucking airtime from declared contenders.
He has also destabilized them by hammering on about immigration and the mortal danger he says it poses to France, making it harder for mainstream rivals to steer campaign conversation back to themes — combating climate change, post-pandemic rebuilding and suchlike — they want to focus on.
Zemmour is acting as a presidential contender in all but name. Supporters are soliciting funds and the backing from elected officials that candidates need to run. Shown the rifle at a security show by an exhibitor who said, “When you are president, Mr. Zemmour,” he interjected, “Yes.”