Eric Zemmour of France runs a campaign à la Donald Trump – in theory – POLITICO

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PARIS – In its face, Eric Zemmour failed in his Trumpian transformation.

Under the surface, it can be a bit more complicated.

In his first TV interview as an official French presidential candidate on Tuesday, Zemmour-a former journalist who runs a rebel campaign heavy on cultural wars and anti-immigrant rhetoric-appeared mild, tense and defensive. . No thrill, no alpha-male bravura. And at the end of the prime-time TV slot, he complained that he didn’t like the journalist’s questions.

In a broader way, the launch of Zemmour’s presidential campaign this week is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

First, there was a finger-flipping episode in Marseille. Then there’s the campaign launch video that the media couldn’t run because Zemmour’s team didn’t approve the TV rights. Ultimately, there were allegations that her 28-year-old de facto campaign director was pregnant with her child-Zemmour was married and campaigned on traditional family values.

As Zemmour rotates from one moment to the next, the French Twittersphere has had a debate over whether he meant some of this. Is there a way to his madness?

This is the same question often asked about another is-this-a-joke presidential candidate: former US President Donald Trump. The answer, however, may not matter. As long as people pay attention, does it matter?

And with Zemmour – as with Trump – people are paying attention, even if it’s just to look up.

An adviser to Zemmour’s campaign team said the early stages of the campaign were all part of “storytelling,” with the theory that “the hero needs to overcome adversity” to keep the media on its fingers. Another clearly admits that the last two days have been “pretty complicated.”

But what is clear is that Zemmour is soaking the media scene with a campaign launch waste at a time when his rivals in the conservative party Les Républicains are choosing their presidential candidate.

Currently, Zemmour will vote at 13 percent compared to 19 percent for his fellow far -right candidate Marine Le Pen and 24 percent for current President Emmanuel Macron, according to POLITICO poll.

Channeling his inner Donald Trump

In his quest for power, Zemmour has a role model: Trump. A friend and conservative ally said Zemmour responded to advice about how to do politics with one simple answer: He was running “a Trumpian campaign.”

Zemmour even made a parallel to himself.

Trump, he told French TV channel LCI, “succeeded in uniting the working classes and the patriotic bourgeoisie. That’s what I’ve been dreaming of… for 20 years. ”

Zemmour hoped that his drastic measures on French immigration and industry would attract the working classes and that his connections to Parisian circles would help drive the French bourgeoisie – a combination that, in part, was reflects Trump’s strategy.

More directly, Zemmour’s ongoing provocations, attacks on media establishment and love of social media is a page taken straight from Trump’s playbook.

Even Zemmour’s sad video launch campaign plays on a key Trumpian theme: nostalgia, according to Christopher Bickerton, a lecturer at Cambridge University.

“Both Trump and Zemmour appealed to an emotional sense in nostalgia,” Bickerton said. “Populists don’t always play with nostalgia, sometimes it’s more white, exclusive vision.” Zemmour appeals to a certain image of France, much like Trump to a certain idea of ​​the US It has a strong impact . ”

The video, released on YouTube, has been viewed over 2.5 million times.

According to Bickerton, one of the lessons of Trump’s first campaign was that the people behind the news media were not “necessarily connected” to society at large. So it is difficult to measure the success of a populist candidate.

“[Zemmour] may be completely out of step and may fall on his face, “Bickerton said,” but perhaps he is more socially aligned, it is hard to say. “

In just four months before the election, however, turning votes views on YouTube is no easy task.

Lost in translation

On Sunday, Zemmour will hold his first campaign rally in Paris, with more than 15,000 supporters expected, according to a campaign adviser. This is his first speech as a politician, and opponents hope it can break the Zemmour bubble.

“There’s something beastly in politics, you have to show power,” said a close adviser to Le Pen. “Zemmour looks weak behind a lectern.”

The adviser said Zemmour was trying to monkey out another famous French anti-immigrant, law-and-order politician: Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father.

“He was trying to copy Jean-Marie Le Pen, but Le Pen was an orator who could hold thousands excited, they could cry and laugh, he really touched them,” the counselor argued.

Then there are practical reasons why it might be difficult for Zemmour to just launch a Trump strategy in France.

France’s presidential election has two rounds, in which the top two who got the vote from the first round face off in a runoff. For candidates, the challenge is always to lead a campaign vivid enough to get through the first round, but consensus enough to appeal to more than 50 percent of voters in the second round.

“Strategically, [Zemmour’s] campaign can’t work, because there are two rounds and the extremists, the eccentrics are always eliminated, ”said the same Le Pen adviser. “The system is built this way.”

That is, however, similar to a mantra preached by Trump’s critics in the 2016 American election-that the reality TV star’s pugilistic stance could infiltrate the Republican primary but will never be attractive enough for a general election. They are wrong.

Another challenge for Zemmour was that he was campaigning alone, without the support of an established party with funds and networks throughout France. Similarly Trump initially got a small cast of political novices and cast-offs while almost every Republican official refused to endorse him.

The difference, however, is that Zemmour legally requires elected official endorsements to run in elections in France – 500 of them, in fact. Trump was only able to continue it on his own in 2016, relying on popular support until even most of his Republican rivals had no choice but to endorse him.

“We don’t have a structure, we don’t have a party, we struggle more than others,” said Dénis Cieslik, who manages the gathering of endorsements for Zemmour. “We’re worried and at this stage, we’re not in a position to say if Zemmour can run. But we’re optimistic.”

Meanwhile, opponents once hoped that Zemmour would avoid the first signs of such difficulties. Now, they hope he becomes unhinged. More importantly, however, they did not remove him from the throne as the main activity in the French media circus.

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