Why the Amour for Zemmour?
Emmanuel Macron’s main challenger in next year’s French presidential election may not be Marine Le Pen, as the firebrand political pundit Éric Zemmour cements his position just behind the president in recent polls.
Despite not having formally declared his candidacy, Zemmour is the choice of roughly 18 percent of French voters, according to the latest Harris Interactive poll, at least three percentage points ahead of Le Pen, but behind Macron at 23 percent. In polling matchups for a second runoff, Macron still beats all challengers.
Zemmour, an author and columnist for the French newspaper Le Figaro is part Tucker Carlson, a media figure lamenting the supposed decline of the West, and part Boris Johnson, invoking history when it suits while possessing a well-honed understanding of where the media’s power begins and ends. Zemmour has kept voters in suspense on whether he will run, while his latest book has become a bestseller.
Benjamin Haddad, the senior director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, notes that although Zemmour has embraced modern techniques to keep hold of the spotlight—constantly stoking outrage by publicly indulging his grievances over race, immigration, homosexuality, and Islam—his position on the French political spectrum is more traditional.
“He is a far-right nationalist. There’s no sugar coating it with words like populism or anything of the sort,” Haddad said. “He is a direct continuation of a far-right tradition in France.”
Zemmour’s ability to overtake Le Pen in the right-wing pecking order is partially down to his fame, Haddad said, but also a reflection of Le Pen’s and transformation to a less radical form of politics as her National Rally party has tried to rebrand, detoxify its image, and build power at a local level.
Whether Zemmour’s rise can continue alongside his status as the right’s frontrunner remains to be seen. During this same period in the 2017 race, Alain Juppé of Les Républicains was a favorite, before his primary loss to party colleague François Fillon. Fillon then became the object of fascination, before a fake jobs scandal dented his chances.
Although times have changed since the last presidential election, one fact from that period should give Zemmour and his supporters hope: In November 2016, Emmanuel Macron was polling even lower than Zemmour is now.
Regardless of Zemmour’s intentions, his popularity indicates a divergence between Europe’s two powerhouses. While Germany embraces left-leaning chancellor Olaf Scholz, France’s political battles are being fought on terrain that is friendly to the far-right.