Éric Zemmour Announces His Candidacy for President of France

General Discussion
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On 2021-11-30, Éric Zemmour, author, journalist, and pundit, announced his candidacy for president of France. He has been called many things, but identifies his political views as Gaullist and Bonapartist. He is running under the banner of a new party named “Reconquête” (re-conquest). This is his announcement speech. The art of political rhetoric still lives in France, at least among Zemmour’s generation (he is 63). Can you imagine a U.S. or British candidate speaking with such candour and passion? I have set the link to automatically enable English subtitles. If this does not work for you, click the “Gear” icon at the bottom, then select “Subtitles/CC” and select English.

When I viewed this video, YouTube made me prove I was old enough to view it by giving them a credit card number (which they said they would not bill). You decide if there is anything in here from which youth (and anybody who doesn’t want to give Google their credit card number) should be protected. They aren’t even being subtle about the thumb on the scale any more.

Thanks to Radio Derb, who recommended this speech and provided the link in the 2021-12-03 edition.

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Makes me go to YouTube to watch but does not ask for a credit card. Subtitles by default.

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Merveilleux! I hope he is well protected and has other outlets besides youtube & google. You can bet his searches are already demoted and the life of this video will be short.

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M. Zemmour is interviewed by a non-moronic journalist. Even he cannot help but be apologetic about Zemmour’s very reasonable views. The interview begins about 1/3 of the way into the video, as linked below. The earlier part of the video has man-in-the-street interviews with attendees at Zemmour’s London appearance.

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I heard Derb’s podcast in which he painfully spells out the URL. Derb needs to learn how to use URL shorteners.

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I first saw this several days ago, thanks to PowerLine. They have an update today:

Zemmour is inspiring the typical reactions among the “elites” of the western world. Makes me like him more, of course.

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Never thought I’d say this: Vive la France.

Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

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Here is a written transcription of the English translation of Zemmour’s announcement speech.

You haven’t left, and yet you have the feeling of no longer being at home. You have not left your country. Your country left you. You smell foreigners in your own country. You are internal exiles.

For a long time, you believed you were the only one to see, to hear, to think, to doubt. You were afraid to say it. You were ashamed of your feelings. For a long time, you dared not say what you are seeing, and above all you dared not see what you were seeing.

And then you said it to your wife. To your husband. To your children. To your father. To your mother. To your friends. To your coworkers. To your neighbors. And then to strangers. And you understood that your feeling of dispossession was shared by everyone.

France is no longer France, and everyone sees it.

Of course, they despised you: the powerful, the élites, the conformists, the journalists, the politicians, the professors, the sociologists, the union bosses, the religious authorities.

They told you it’s all a ploy, it’s all fake, it’s all wrong. But you understood in time that it was they who were a ploy, they who had it all wrong, they who did you wrong.

The disappearance of our civilization is not the only question that harasses us, although it towers over everything. Immigration is not the cause of all our problems, although it aggravates everything.

The third-worlding of our country and our people impoverishes as much as it disintegrates, ruins as much as it torments.

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As a French citizen, your comment made me both smile and happy.

Eric Zemmour is the big event that everyone is talking about, and has been for a few months now, long before his official candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic. And the character (most journalists call him the polemicist) has been known for many years. He gives a good kick in the ant-hill. We can say that his observations on the French society are visible to all but are denied, naturally, by this caricatured left, which is strong in France.

Eric Zemmour is a good connoisseur of French history, a good speaker. He is particularly fond of Napoleon and has chosen a famous apocryphal sentence of Napoleon “Impossible is not French!” as a slogan.

The French society is known for its sudden jolts rather than its evolutions (it is not Louis XVI who will say the opposite… if he still had his head), it seems that we are at the beginning of a phase of jolt, without naturally arriving at the same ends :wink:

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Clearly.

There was a line in his speech about the French army having conquered Europe.

1870, 1914, and 1939 proved that the inability to repeat Napoleon’s achievements was not due to modern policies.

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Forgot to add a link to my article on my site, just after he declared himself as a candidate, it’s in French, but you know, nobody is perfect :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: (Deepl is your friend)

The presidential candidate who didn’t need to win:

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Viva la France!

American Wright Brothers – though from Dayton, Ohio – became famous in Paris, France. Read about it here The Wright Brothers book by David McCullough

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These views, that a majority regards its culture and civilization favorably - recognizes the value of its history - yet engages in self-examination, criticism and improvement - and asks immigrants to conform to the culture, these views are now the definition of ‘far right’. Pitiful.

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The anti-Macron vote is quite fragmented:

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I wonder about this translation. I have been unable to find the French text of the speech, but suspect from the near-universal characterization of Zemmour as ‘far right’ that the translation is aimed at making him look as offensive as possible (the usual tactic of the left). If the original was “vous sentez”, it would be more accurate to translate it as “you feel” rather than that “you smell”.

You know, Trump was absolutely correct when he called the MSM the enemy of the people. Their campaign of division (wall to wall ‘white supremacy’ when such sentiments barely exist) and fear mongering is despicable beyond words. Actually, it is treasonous and tantamount to incitement to civil war - talk about calling something what it is.

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This appears to be a fake or incompetent translation. Here is the text of the speech from the official zemmour2022.fr Web site. The relevant passage is:

Vous n’avez pas déménagé et pourtant vous avez la sensation de ne plus être chez vous. Vous n’avez pas quitté votre pays mais c’est comme si votre pays vous avait quitté. Vous vous sentez étrangers dans votre propre pays. Vous êtes des exilés de l’intérieur.

(emphasis mine). The bold text should be translated, “You feel yourselves foreigners in your own country.” The verb sentir can mean “smell”, “feel”, or “taste”, but obviously “feel” is intended here. The English translation loses the meaning of the reflexive construction of “Vous vous sentez”, which I translated to English by adding “yourselves” after “feel” since English does not have such a pronoun construction. Omitting the reflexive makes the sentence read like an attack on foreigners’ smell, not at all what the original conveys.

The English subtitles on the official campaign Web site translate this sentence (at 2:20) as “You feel like a stranger in your own country.”, which is a looser translation than mine.

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He implicitly refers to Cugnot in asserting French invention of the automobile.

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Exactly, it’s hard to argue against the point that Zemmour is meant to spoil Le Pen’s realistic chances this time around, and thus help Macron win another term.

The only silver lining would be legitimizing the nationalistic discourse within polite society. But once Macron is safely installed into his second term, expect all that to be quietly but quickly forgotten.

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Here is Éric Zemmour’s Christmas message.

“malmesburyman” has posted an English translation as a long Twitter thread which I have transcribed below.

My dear countrymen, my friends:

Tonight, Christianity celebrates Christmas. But not only Christianity. For one need not be Christian to celebrate Christmas. It suffices to love the West in general, and France in particular.

The night of Christmas Eve begins the celebration of a civilization — ours — that has enlightened human history. A civilization that believes man is absolutely free, whatever his birth, his past, his environment, his path

In the Christian world, liberty has a divine nature and must be protected as the most precious treasure.

A civilization that believes men are equal in dignity. Everyone, from the prostitute to the king, and all in between - the beggar, the rich man, the widow, the orphan, the soldier, the leper — are children of god and all are equal before him. No race, no class - a holy equality.

A civilization that believes the beautiful is also holy. The civilization of Rembrandt, da Vinci, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Paintings, sculptures, works of technical perfection and awesome depth.

The whole world admires western art. It is impossible not to be overwhelmed by the Pietà of Michelangelo.

A civilization that believes truth is neither theoretical nor relative but concrete, incarnated, and holy. To deny truth is to deny the Good. The lie is both the day-to-day and the eternal face of evil.

This infinite respect for truth has allowed the enormous rise of philosophy and exact science in the west.

A civilization that believes heaven on earth doesn’t exist and never will. A civilization that refuses to give credence to utopias and projects for a perfect society—communism, nazism—that destroyed the 20th century and threaten the 21st with a new and still more troubling face.

A civilization that opposes totalitarianism like day to night. A civilization that believes sweetness, tenderness, and love are superior to all other human conduct.

Knowing how to win in war is good and the Christian world must never refuse to make war when it is attacked. It must win the war, but knowing how to win the peace after victory is harder still.

To this idea, we owe the incomparably peaceful character of western societies when they are faithful to themselves.

Societies that have committed errors, mistakes, crimes: obviously, for it is built by men and all men are imperfect, egotistical, whether believers or not. But a civilization that must be considered the most evolved, sophisticated, creative, and tolerant the world has ever known.

France owes much to Catholicism, and the world owes much to French Catholicism. The long adventure of Catholicism in France is of an unequaled splendor.

St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Clovis, St. Louis, Joan of Arc, Thomas Aquinas who taught at the Sorbonne, Bossuet, Fénelon, Blaise Pascal, Thérèse of Lisieux, Paul Claudel, and so many others.

The eldest daughter of the Church has borne so many wonderful children, and our 86 cathedrals are the most beautiful of all — of which Victor Hugo made a beloved symbol across five continents.

General de Gaulle, in the greatest confidence, gave regular confession. His faith played a determinant role in the destiny of our country. Without the Cross, there would not have been a Cross of Lorraine.

And let us not forget the hundreds of millions of Christians — for it is hundreds of millions — being persecuted throughout the world as we speak.

Censored, threatened, tortured, assassinated: never in its long history has this religion been martyred in such dreadful silence. I solemnly swear that France will make their voice heard on the world stage.

Tonight, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. But others — all others — in France can also celebrate Christmas. That is the purpose of Christmas trees, gifts, kisses, and wonderful smiles of children.

My name comes from ancient times, and means “olive tree” in Berber — the tree of peace. Tonight I wish that everyone will find peace — peace in each of us, and peace among us.

Christmas is the opposite of civil war. It is the reconciliation that shines in the night. The humble and moving Nativity, present in so many families, delivers its message through the centuries. The miracle returns every December 24 at midnight.

Dear countrymen, Merry Christmas. Long live the Republic, and above all, long live France!

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As much as I appreciate almost all of Eric Zemmour’s positions, his recent inclination towards the Catholic religion, which everyone has understood is intended to block the Muslim advance in France, risks costing him votes for a very simple reason: France is no longer religious, more than half of the French people declare that they do not believe in God…

He plays on the ambivalence of Christmas, that he makes pass for a Christian celebration and the day of birth of Christ, well we all know that it is not the case, as I remind it in this article.

I was going to say, it doesn’t really matter, I myself am an atheist, I naturally celebrate Christmas like almost everyone else in France. Although Zemmour takes some precautions in this speech not to completely equate Christmas with Christianity, one feels that he is itching to take the plunge, a move that he might electorally regret in a secular country.

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