Zemmour Put Far-Right Identity Rhetoric At Center Of French Political Discourse - Expert

Zemmour Put Far-Right Identity Rhetoric at Center of French Political Discourse - Expert

French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has shifted the Overton window in French politics by centering his platform on far-right identity rhetoric, Jose Pedro Zuquete, senior research fellow at the Instituto Ciencias Sociais, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2021) French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has shifted the Overton window in French politics by centering his platform on far-right identity rhetoric, Jose Pedro Zuquete, senior research fellow at the Instituto Ciencias Sociais, told Sputnik.

Zemmour, a controversial pundit and tv host, announced that he will be running in next April's presidential election at the end of November after polls showed him temporarily come in second after incumbent Emmanuel Macron. The 63-year-old stands out among the right as more hardline than veteran politician Marine Le Pen.

Zemmour's candidacy is "one of the most Identitarian political projects in today's western Europe," given that the pundit focuses primarily on topics of the country's identity and the perceived threats thereto, Zuquete noted. Zemmour was a staunch critic of globalization even before entering the presidential race, so his program statements do not come as a surprise, the expert added.

"I do not think that Zemmour's motivations are fake. As a public intellectual he has been repeating for a long time the same themes about the decadence of France caused by the weakness and bad choices of political elites and the 'mortal danger' caused by multiculturalism, immigration and islam," Zuquete said.

Zemmour singles out two major issues which he believes threaten France: the demographic crisis which he describes as the Great Replacement of ethnic French of European descent by non-Europeas, and an alleged Islamization of the country, according to Zuquete.

The pundit goes so far as to claim that these two trends are leading the country into a civil war, the expert said.

"Even if he fails, and electorally the odds are still against him, Zemmour has already shifted the Overton window. He has put at the center ideas often avoided by politicians - especially the concept of the Great Replacement, which, until recently, lay outside the political mainstream and now is at the very center of political debate in France," Zuquete stressed.

Moreover, even though the Great Replacement is often regarded as a far-right concept, on par with other "white genocide" ideas, a recent French poll showed that a substantial part of the population believes that this process is real, Zuquete said.

"Therefore, it can also be said that Zemmour gives voice to such widespread demographic/cultural concerns," the expert said, adding that talking about the Great Replacement doesn't make you a political pariah in France anymore.

At the same time, Zemmour rejects the liberal emphasis on individualism, which he calls hyper-individualism, as destructive of the nation and favors a more "communitarian," people- and culture-based approach to politics, which makes him more aligned with the illiberal paradigms of eastern Europe, Zuquete said.

Zemmour's new party, Reconquete, has already gathered 20,000 members and rallied $1.9 million in contributions since its establishment on December 5, French national broadcaster BMF TV reported on Tuesday.