France will choose its next president six months from Sunday, on April 24th, 2022. The re-election of Emmanuel Macron remains the most likely scenario, but the breakthrough of the presumed far right-wing candidate Eric Zemmour, who is running neck and neck with Marine Le Pen, has upset predictions of a replay of the 2017 run-off between Macron and Le Pen.
Zemmour (63) has never been elected to public office and has not officially declared his candidacy. A columnist for Le Figaro newspaper and a commentator on CNews, the French equivalent of Fox News in the US, Zemmour is the author of best-selling books which blame France's woes on feminists, homosexuals, and Arab Muslim immigrants. He has managed to siphon off support from the mainstream right-wing party Les Républicains, as well as from Le Pen's extreme right-wing Rassemblement National.
The latest survey by France's leading polling institute, Ifop, shows Macron steady at 24 per cent of the vote in the first round, followed by Le Pen with 17 per cent and Zemmour at 16 per cent. Some polls put Zemmour ahead of Le Pen, which would pit him against Macron in the run-off. Robert Ménard, the far-right mayor of Béziers, has implored Le Pen and Zemmour to rally behind whomever is best positioned to defeat Macron.
Zemmour's dark rhetoric may be more in synch with the national mood than Macron's chirpy optimism
The combined projected first-round scores of Le Pen, Zemmour and a third far-right candidate, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, is between 35 and 38 per cent, 10 points higher than in the previous presidential election. The fact that well over a third of the French electorate say they intend to vote for the anti-European, anti-immigrant and Islamophobic far right causes alarm across much of the political spectrum.
“We’ve never seen a dynamic like Zemmour’s, for someone who is not yet a candidate,” says Frédéric Dabi, a director at Ifop. “This is the most important event of the first part of the presidential campaign.”
An Ipsos-Sopra-Stena poll for Le Monde last month showed that 75 per cent of the French believe their country is in decline. Macron recently unveiled his remedy, a €30 billion investment plan called France 2030, which he promises will revive the innovative genius that developed the Concorde jet, high-speed train and nuclear power industry.
Zemmour’s dark rhetoric may be more in synch with the national mood than Macron’s chirpy optimism. His favourite themes – security, terrorism and immigration – figure second, third and sixth in the hierarchy of voter concerns.
Le Pen’s support is strongest among the young and working class. Zemmour appeals to a broader base, which more resembles Macron’s. He does, however, suffer from the so-called radical right gender gap. As seen in Trump’s America, women are less likely to vote for far-right candidates.
Zemmour's strategy of provocation has earned him two convictions for hate speech
Zemmour, the son of Algerian Jewish immigrants, and his constant companion, Sarah Knafo ( 28), whose family are Moroccan Jewish immigrants, are organising rallies across France. Zemmour coached Knafo for the competitive entry examination for the prestigious École Nationale d'Administration. She secured a post as a magistrate at the state auditor, the Cour des Comptes, which she used to network for Zemmour's campaign.
Knafo told Figaro journalist Alexandre Devecchio that she and Zemmour are united intellectually. "As a French Jewish woman, I recognise myself in his path of assimilation, and his detachment from Jewish identity. I am Jewish, but I feel of Christian culture. For me, [the Catholic writer] Charles Péguy is as important as the Torah."
Zemmour’s strategy of provocation has earned him two convictions for hate speech. He recently called Marlène Schiappa, the minister for citizenship and the government’s leading feminist, an idiot. On October 20th, he picked up a sniper’s rifle at the Milipol weapons exhibition and aimed it at journalists covering his visit.
Much will depend on the outcome of Les Républicains' December 4th congress, when the political descendants of Charles de Gaulle will choose their presidential candidate. Xavier Bertrand, the president of the northern France region, is in the lead, with 15 per cent according to the Ifop poll. Michel Barnier, the former EU commissioner and Brexit negotiator, and Valérie Pécresse, the president of the Paris region, are tied for second place at 10 per cent.
The French left and environmentalists are so far irrelevant in the campaign. None of their seven candidates has even reached the 10 per cent mark in opinion polls
A strong challenger from the mainstream right could be the greatest threat to Macron’s re-election. If Le Pen and Zemmour split the far-right vote, they could neutralise each other and propel Bertrand to the run-off. The Ifop poll shows Macron would defeat Le Pen, 56 to 44 per cent (a two-point loss for Le Pen since April). He would beat Zemmour by 60 to 40 per cent. Xavier Bertrand, however, would tie with Macron at 50-50 in a run-off.
Bertrand and Pécresse had both left the party to dissociate themselves from the financial scandals surrounding Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007-2012 presidency. They have returned to the fold to seek the party’s nomination. “It is impossible to create a dynamic for LR until we’ve chosen our candidate,” says Barnier. He garners little name recognition in France. Though he is 70 years old and has served several times as a cabinet minister in Paris, Barnier portrays himself as a new man.
Barnier, Bertrand and Pécresse have created a stir by questioning France's subjugation to EU law, against the backdrop of a démarche by the European Commission against Poland for saying its national law overrides EU law. Macron condemned them, saying, "As soon as there's a problem, we revert to the old French malady of saying 'It's the fault of Europe'." Barnier wants a three- to five-year moratorium on immigration because, he says, jurisprudence at the European Court of Justice under the Human Rights Convention, "is systematically favourable to foreigners".
The French left and environmentalists are so far irrelevant in the campaign. None of their seven candidates has even reached the 10 per cent mark in opinion polls. The former Socialist president François Hollande, whose approval ratings reached abysmal depths, and who could not even stand for re-election in 2017, published a book this week in which he called his former comrades Lilliputians.
