The visit to Marseille by Eric Zemmour, the writer and polemic who ignites the spirits as a possible far-right candidate in the 2022 French presidential elections, ended badly, very badly. It ended with a middle finger, immortalized by a photo of France Press .
At the exit of a restaurant where the polemicist had just had lunch, a woman approached his car and he agreed to roll down the window. But she showed him the middle finger and Zemmour did the same, adding a line: “And very deeply …”, while his adviser, Sarah Knafo, at his side, laughed.
Zemmour had presented Marseille as “the anti-example”, describing it as “disintegrated by immigration. If we do nothing, all of France will be like Marseille, a city submerged by immigration and partly Islamized ». Marseille, a cosmopolitan city “is a myth,” added the essayist. Port city, Marseille has been shaped over the centuries by various migrations, Italian, Armenian, Comorian and Maghreb.
It was “an instinctive gesture”, his entourage defended it, but they did not want to answer the question of whether it was also a “presidential” gesture. At the end of his pre-campaign, Zemmour vice difficult days: in addition to polls stagnating or dropping (12% and 17% in the first round), there were anti-fascist demonstrations in cities where his presence was expected (Geneva, for example) and he had to get off the train in Aix-en-Provence instead of Marseille where protests awaited him. In the afternoon he walked for less than 15 minutes, in the Panier district, shouting from those who claimed “Marseille anti-racist”. While his walk in the Old Port was canceled.
In recent days, the polemicist has lost the support of the financier Charles Gave, even if he defended himself by claiming that “he had never been in the team”. Not only that: his lawyers have announced their intention to sue the magazine Closer, who wrote on Friday that his closest adviser, Sarah Knafo, is pregnant with him. Despite these setbacks, “there is not the slightest doubt about his candidacy: We are waiting for you to press the button,” assures his entourage.