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 harking back 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 house!” — they chanted in a cavernous conference middle crammed with spotlights, audio system and large screens in Villepinte, a suburb northeast of Paris.
At one level throughout he rally, antiracism activists have been attacked within the kind of brawl hardly ever seen at French political occasions. Earlier within the day, followers booed a tv information crew, forcing it to be briefly evacuated, and a number of other journalists reported being insulted and overwhelmed.
The 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 appropriate. However the rally supplied a glimpse of the place the election might head, and which Trumpian tones it might 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 gas his rise.
He has accomplished 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 counsel 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 backfire, as proven at Sunday’s rally, when dozens of his supporters attacked antiracism activists. The violent brawl might 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 accomplished any lasting harm to Mr. Zemmour’s political ambitions as he faucets into widespread fears that French identification is being whittled away by immigration. These fears have been heightened by quite a few terrorist assaults lately, some dedicated by the youngsters of immigrants.
The group of about 12,000 those that gathered within the Villepinte conference middle, mirrored a number of 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 scholar 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 help comes primarily from the working class. A latest study confirmed Mr. Zemmour scoring properly 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 faculty.” And there have been loud cheers when he talked about “the good alternative, with the Islamization of France, mass immigration and fixed insecurity.”
The so-called great replacement, a contentious idea 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 speculation, pointing to the rising variety of immigrant households dwelling in her residence constructing in western Paris.
“We’re the final white folks there,” she stated, “that is for actual.”
The identify of Mr. Zemmour’s new get together, “Reconquest,” evokes the centuries-long interval often 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 tons of 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 mates who’re actually into it,” she stated.
Mr. Martigny, the political scientist, stated that Mr. Zemmour was the product of “tradition wars” that had regularly 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 with out a prior cultural victory,” Mr. Martigny stated of Mr. Zemmour’s workforce.
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 usually makes use of to dismiss criticism, and which roughly interprets to “Oh, come on!” The group 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 have been two completely different international locations, that they had “clearly” checked out Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential run “as a result of it was a hit.”
Raphaël Llorca, a French communication skilled 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 “scale 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 strategy 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 enchantment to each the conservative, bourgeois voters and that of the Yellow Vests, the principally working-class motion that protested in opposition to 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 primary 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 up to now didn’t garner help from any main political determine, or get together. This stays a significant distinction from Mr. Trump, who might rely on the highly effective Republican Get together and stable monetary backing.
Mr. Zemmour stated he was the goal of the media and the elites. He praised the gang 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 an investigations into the violence, together with one in opposition to 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 skilled, 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 have been neo-Nazi militants. As they chased down the activists towards the doorway corridor, carrying black mufflers that hid their faces, they have been stopped by a safety employees member.
“Thanks for being there,” he informed them. “You probably did the job!”
