Éric Zemmour

Éric Zemmour
Zemmour in 2021 Zemmour in 2021
Born	Éric Justin Léon Zemmour (1958-08-31) 31 August 1958 Montreuil, France
Occupation	Essayist, political journalist
Alma mater	Sciences Po
Subject	Political history, cultural evolution, opposition to immigration
Notable works	L'homme qui ne s'aimait pas Le premier sexe Mélancolie française Le Suicide français Destin français La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot
Notable awards	Prix Richelieu, Prix Combourg-Chateaubriand
Spouse	Mylène Chichportich
Children	3
Website
YouTube channel

Éric Justin Léon Zemmour (French pronunciation: [eʁik zemuʁ]; born 31 August 1958) is a French political journalist, essayist, writer and pundit. He was editor and diarist on Face à l'Info, a daily show broadcast on CNews, from 2019 to 2021. Most mainstream news organisations label Zemmour as far-right, he politically self-identifies as Gaullist and Bonapartist.

Born in Montreuil, Zemmour studied at Sciences Po. He worked as a reporter for Le Quotidien de Paris from 1986 to 1996, when he joined Le Figaro until he was moved in 2010 to Le Figaro Magazine, before being reassigned to Le Figaro in 2013, where he worked until 2021. He continued after 2013 to write for Le Figaro Magazine as a columnist as well. Zemmour appeared as a television personality on shows such as On n'est pas couché on France 2 (2006–2011) and Ça se dispute on I-Télé (2003–2014). He also appeared on Zemmour et Naulleau from 2011 to 2021, a weekly evening talk show hosted by Anaïs Bouton on Paris Première, together with literary critic Éric Naulleau. Zemmour worked in parallel for RTL from 2010 until 2019, first hosting the daily radio show Z comme Zemmour, prior to joining Yves Calvi's morning news show as an analyst. His book The French Suicide (Le Suicide français) sold more than 500,000 copies in 2014 and won the 2015 Prix Combourg-Chateaubriand. In 2011 Zemmour was awarded the Prix Richelieu for his achievements in journalism.

In 2021, a New York Times article described Zemmour as someone who "has portrayed himself as a truth-teller in a news media dominated by politically correct, left-leaning journalists. He has railed against the immigration of Muslim Africans, invoking the supposed existential threat of a 'great replacement'—a loaded term that even Ms. Le Pen has avoided—that will overwhelm France's more established white and Christian population". He has extensively discussed the Clash of Civilisations thesis, as well as advocated for vast reforms to France's political system. Zemmour has been considered in news media as a possible right-wing anti-establishment candidate in the 2022 presidential election. Although he remains publicly undecided about a run for office, early polling has suggested he could qualify for the second round, a rise which The Guardian has described as "meteoric". Frequently sued by political opponents for making controversial statements, Zemmour was fined for provocation to racial discrimination in 2011 and for incitement of hate against Muslims in 2018, albeit the latter conviction is pending review before the European Court of Human Rights. He was acquitted six times of similar charges, in 2008, 2014 (twice), 2016, 2017 and 2019. Convictions in 2015 and 2020 were overturned on appeal.

Life and career

Early life

Éric Zemmour was born on 31 August 1958 in Montreuil, at that time in the Seine department, now part of Seine-Saint-Denis. His parents were Berber Jews from Algeria with French citizenship who came to metropolitan France during the Algerian War. He grew up first in Drancy and later in the Paris Château Rouge quarter. The son of Roger Zemmour (a paramedic) and his wife Lucette, a housewife, he has said he admires his mother and grandmother, as his father was often absent; he was raised by women "who taught [him] to be a man".

Education

Zemmour graduated from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 1979. He subsequently failed twice to gain admission to the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA). Despite his failure to gain admission to the ÉNA, his status as a political journalist allowed him to be a member of the admissions committee of the school in 2006.

Personal life

Since 1982, Éric Zemmour has been married to Mylène Chichportich, a lawyer of Tunisian Jewish descent who specialized in bankruptcy law. She maintains a low media profile and never comments on her husband's controversies. Together they have three children, two boys and a girl.

Political journalist

Zemmour in 2011

Zemmour began his career in 1986 on the politics desk at Le Quotidien de Paris, under the editorship of Philippe Tesson. After the newspaper went out of business in 1994, he became a leader writer at Info-Matin, where he stayed one year. He joined Le Figaro in 1996 as a political journalist. During this period, Zemmour was also a freelancer for Marianne (1997) and for Valeurs actuelles (1999). In 2010, he was moved by Le Figaro to Le Figaro Magazine, allegedly after making controversial statements in other media, but in fact, it was due to his salary being considered too high for his modest weekly output. He was moved back to Le Figaro as a permanent journalist in 2013, where he has been writing regularly since, until he took time off work in September 2021 to promote his new book. He is also a political columnist at Le Spectacle du Monde.

Writer and essayist

Zemmour has written biographies of Édouard Balladur (Balladur, immobile à grands pas, or "Balladur, motionless with great strides") and Jacques Chirac (L'Homme qui ne s'aimait pas, or "The Man Who Did Not Like Himself") along with political essays. Notably, in 2006 he published Le premier sexe ("The First Sex"), a book on what he considers to be the feminisation of society. He worked on the screenplay for the film Dans la peau de Jacques Chirac by Michel Royer and Karl Zéro, although the latter stated that Zemmour's writing saw limited use. In March 2010, with Mélancolie française ("French Melancholy") which won the Prix du livre incorrect (lit. 'Inappropriate Book Award'), he revisits the history of France. Zemmour's 2014 book Le Suicide français ("The French Suicide"), which sold over 500,000 copies, remains his best literary success.

Television and radio personality

Beginning in September 2003, he participated every week on the show Ça se dispute on the 24-hour news channel i>Télé opposite Nicolas Domenach (Christophe Barbier until 2006). The channel decided to stop the programme in December 2014. He also appeared on Vendredi pétantes on Canal+ until June 2006. Starting September 2006, he rejoined France 2 to participate on the show On n'est pas couché, hosted by Laurent Ruquier, accompanied by Michel Polac and then Éric Naulleau, where they were responsible for presenting honest criticism of films, books or albums most notably. During the show, their exchanges with cultural figures sometimes ended in clashes. On 27 May 2011, Ruquier announced in Le Parisien that he was replacing Zemmour and Naulleau with new contributors for the next season of On n'est pas couché.

Éric Zemmour was also a participant on the show L'Hebdo as an editorialist on Tempo, a channel for the overseas departments and territories; he was accompanied by, among others, sociologist Dominique Wolton. Finally, he was on the cable network Histoire on the show Le grand débat, hosted by Michel Field. From 4 January 2010, he also presented a short piece on RTL entitled Z comme Zemmour every Monday and Friday, during which he analyses the news. From September 2011, he was a weekly guest on Zemmour et Naulleau alongside Éric Naulleau, an evening talk show on Paris Première. By 2021, Zemmour's show received about 900,000 nightly viewers, ten times higher than in 2019.

In 2015, following the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Zemmour was temporarily placed under armed police protection. On 30 April 2020, Zemmour was insulted and threatened in Paris as he was walking alone with grocery bags. The incident was recorded by the perpetrator himself who posted the video on social media, boasting about his act as Zemmour was filmed ignoring the man and trying to walk away. Shortly thereafter, Zemmour received a phone call from President Emmanuel Macron during which they discussed the incident. The perpetrator, who later also recorded himself saying Zemmour is "too strong in debate, what do you want to do except insult him", received a suspended prison sentence of three months on 8 September 2020. On 27 September 2021, Zemmour was again threatened in Paris, when a man shouted a death threat in the name of Islam.
Since October 2020, he is again under permanent armed police protection.

Candidacy in the 2022 presidential election

Zemmour has been urged several times by political friends to run for office. He always declined the proposition, but did not deny wanting to play a role in the 2022 presidential campaign. He commented on this matter in an interview in June 2021 broadcast by "Livre noir" which attracted more than 1 million viewers.

In 2021, he engaged in a national tour of France for the promotion of his new book, La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot, published on 15 September. It sold over 80,000 copies in the first four days, and 165,000 copies in the first 3 weeks. Guest on France 2 on 11 September in Laurent Ruquier's On est en direct programme, Zemmour suggested that the announcement of his candidacy was only a matter of time: "For now, I am not a candidate. When I want to be a candidate, I will say that I am a candidate. When I decide, I will say it. For now, I am thinking. There are people, for many years, months, for years, who pushed me to be a candidate, who think that it is I who have the right ideas for France", he indicated. He reiterated this position throughout September on RTL, BFMTV, CNews and LCI. On 28 September, Le Parisien revealed that Éric Zemmour already has at his disposal a large office space, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, rented by the association "The Friends of Éric Zemmour".

On 24 September, Zemmour engaged in a widely publicized two hour long televised debate with left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon attracting over 3.8 million viewers.

On 30 November, Eric Zemmour declares he is a candidate for the 2022 presidential election.

Polls for the 2022 presidential election

His candidacy has been tested in several polls since June 2021. The first time he appeared in a poll, in June 2021, the Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP) credited him of 5.5% of the vote.

In August 2021, he was credited with 7% of voting intentions according to Ipsos. On 14 September he was credited by Harris Interactive with 10% of voting intentions, on 21 September with 11%, as well as on 29 September with 13 to 14% of voting intentions. Harris Interactive, one of the major French polling institutes, is now regularly and closely following his ascension. On 29 September 2021, Valeurs actuelles titled a YouTube interview with Zemmour as "The Rocket Zemmour".

On 1 October 2021, with 15% of voting intentions, he passed in front of all the right-wing candidates for the first time, reaching the third place of all candidates with only 1 point behind National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen. Hence, he was placed in a potentially competitive position to reach the second round of the election. In this Ipsos Sopra-Steria survey in partnership with France Info, President Emmanuel Macron leads with around 25%, followed by Marine Le Pen (around 16%). Éric Zemmour follows behind at 15%. The right-wing candidates, who will face off at a The Republicans congress on 8 December, come behind in every tested hypothesis: Xavier Bertrand (14%), Valérie Pécresse (12%), Michel Barnier (11%).
On 6 October 2021, Zemmour reached 17% of voting intentions and the second place of all candidates, qualifying for the first time of all polls for the second round of the election. In this Harris Interactive survey for the economic magazine Challenges, President Emmanuel Macron leads with around 24%, as Marine Le Pen is falling to 15% of voting intentions. The right-wing candidates come behind Zemmour: Xavier Bertrand (13%), Valérie Pécresse (11%), Michel Barnier (10%). The managing director of Harris Interactive, Jean-Daniel Lévy, did not hide his astonishment: "We have never seen such a meteoric rise in such a short time".
On 13 October 2021, in a new Harris Interactive poll, Zemmour reached 17/18% of voting intentions, maintaining the second place of all candidates behind Emmanuel Macron, still leading with 24%. Marine Le Pen keeps 15% of voting intentions. The right-wing candidates keep coming behind Zemmour: Xavier Bertrand (14/15%), Valérie Pécresse (11%), Michel Barnier (7/9%).

On 7 November 2021, IFOP-FIDUCIAL, confirmed in a poll for Le FIGARO, that Zemmour maintains his second place and hence access to the second round of the election, with 17/18% of vote intentions at the first round, behind Macron. The rising trend of voting intentions was also confirmed on 9 November 2021, by a new Harris Interactive poll which attributes to Zemmour 18/19% of voting intentions for the first round, maintaining the second place of all candidates behind Emmanuel Macron, still leading with 23/24%.

Overview of political positions

Zemmour identifies his political leanings with Gaullism and Bonapartism.

Since 2014, Éric Zemmour has been commonly presented as a "far-right pundit" in French media. Historian Laurent Joly considers in 2015 that "since Barrès and Maurras, no other intellectual, journalist or writer has had this status as a broker of far-right ideas with a very large readership".
In an interview with Zemmour in August 2021, a journalist asked him how it is still possible to classify him on the extreme right Zemmour brushed aside the criticisms: "It is an old Stalinist method of the 1930s, which consists in calling all your opponents 'fascists'."

On the contrary, Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at the Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS) since 2006 and president of the Observatoire des radicalités politiques at the centre-left think tank Fondation Jean-Jaurès since 2014, who is a worldwide recognised specialist of this political field in France, states that Zemmour cannot be characterized as belonging to the far-right. He explains why: "Far-right, we must not exaggerate. The far-right inevitably refers to the fascist, Nazi experiences, to collaboration. Éric Zemmour may have had extremely problematic historical analyses, in particular on Marshal Pétain and the fate of the Jews during the Second World War. But that he is not fascist, that seems absolutely obvious to me".
Asked in October 2021 on the positioning of Eric Zemmour in relation to Marine Le Pen, Camus ranks him "on the right", more precisely in the family of the "radical conservative right", believing that he cannot be considered as a far-right man because of his background and potential electorate for the 2022 presidential election.

Many other French media outlets also present him "on the right", or even in the "conservative right", or as Gaullist, or in the "sovereignist right", or in the "radical right", or in the "radical and identitary right".

International relations

Zemmour has argued for a distancing of France from the United States, a closer relationship with Russia, as well as an increased independence from the European Union and its foreign policy. He has stated that the Normandy landings had been both a liberation but also a "colonization" of France by the United States. He has also called for a strengthening of the French Armed Forces, arguing that the only influence that France has retained on the international scene was due to the strength of its armed forces and its nuclear defense capabilities. Zemmour supports a withdrawal from the NATO's integrated military command.

Zemmour views about Russia

Eric Zemmour considers that France must move closer to Moscow, in a Gaullist logic for a unified Europe "from the Atlantic to the Urals".

On a debate with Bernard Henri Levy on CNews in June 2021, Zemmour commented on the development of Russia after the fall of the USSR, stating that under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia was sold at auction to mafia oligarchs and the Americans and that Yeltsin was a puppet of the Americans, at a time when Russian pensioners were starving and did not see their pensions. He added that since then Putin has restored the power of the Russian state.

He is in favour of recognising the annexation of Crimea by France, unilaterally, and has proposed lifting the "unfair" and "counterproductive" anti-Russian sanctions adopted by the West after the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation following the referendum held in Crimea in 2014.

Eric Zemmour stated that France should have a privileged alliance with Russia, and that “It is foolish to demonize Russia, because the real enemy is China”.

Social and economic issues

As a result of the views that he regularly expresses on television and in his editorials in Le Figaro, Zemmour is widely perceived, according to current mainstream categories, to be situated firmly on the right of the political spectrum, but he also claims not to vote according to right-wing or left-wing politics. He declares himself to be of the Gaullist or Bonapartist tradition.
He acknowledges the relevance of some Marxist analyses, particularly concerning the sources of profit in capitalism, including immigration. He thinks, and wrote on this subject, that the very important migratory movements of the last twenty years have been one of the major components of economic growth without inflation, since this continuous flow of cheap workers has weighed like a screed of lead on the wages of Western workers.
According to him, capitalism destroys traditional structures like the family in order to impose the rule of the market, an upheaval that has been apparent since the events of May 1968.

Social issues

He takes a conservative stance on social issues. He thus identifies himself as a reactionary in opposition to a society that deconstructs social order, in particular the family and traditions, in the service of a false goal, liberating the individual who in reality finds himself isolated and reduced to the sole status of a consumer. He presents reaction as subversive in the light of the fact that progressives, today dominant in the fields of culture and media, cannot claim to criticise the established order since they themselves constitute this order and fix its norms.

Economic issues

Zemmour's diagnosis of the current economic state of France precedes his positions on various economic issues, and in particular questions of fiscal policy and free trade. He always recalls that France is "world champion in everything" in this regard, with 30% of GDP for social protection, 56% for public spending and 47% for compulsory contributions, such as direct taxes and various other social contributions.
He also recalls that France's budget massively helps foreigners and immigrants, who benefit for example from 42% of the social redistribution of the national Family Allowance Fund. Zemmour declared in that regard that he will stop all kind of helps and subsidies to foreigners, and claims that this will bring 20 to 30 billion Euros yearly savings to the French budget. In particular, he also advocates abolishing state medical aid for foreigners, which costs 1 billion Euros per year to the state budget.

Economically rather anti-liberal, his disapproval of free trade drives him to oppose European federalism and the European Union, which he considers to be clearly in favour of the free movement of goods and in deep conflict with the French social model. According to him, because of the European Union, the left, like the right, must apply "the same economic policy, social liberalism or liberal socialism" because, in the words of Philippe Séguin, "right and left are retailers of the same wholesaler, Europe". Zemmour supports protectionism, which he feels is the only healthy economic policy nowadays.

Taxes and social contributions

In order to help companies regain competitiveness, Zemmour wants to lower direct taxes on their profit. Social taxes should be drastically cut, according to Zemmour, also in order to reach this competitiveness goal..
He has proposed to reduce the CSG (general social contribution) from 9% to 2.5%, for employees who have a modest salary, from the minimum wage up to 2,000 euros. Eric Zemmour thus judges that this would make a salary increase of a monthly minimum wage over the year. In order both not to reduce the social protection model of the French and to finance this tax cut, he wants "national solidarity to become national again", and has proposed that non-contributory social expenditure (family allowances, housing allowances, minimum old-age allowance, minimum living allowance) be withdrawn from foreigners and are reserved for the French. According to him, this represents 20 billion savings for the national budget.

Euro and free trade issues

While Zemmour advocated getting out of Euro, he is no longer supporting this idea, which he considers would have more disadvantages than advantages at this stage. He rather prefers to concentrate on free trade issues, in order to stop free trade treaties, and introduce import taxes on strategic products where France needs to defend its national interest, local production, and social model.

Entrepreneurship and state role

Zemmour wants to free entrepreneurs, farmers and the self-employed from what he calls "bureaucratic hell", and who he says face a "tsunami of standards". He proposed to create a high commission, in charge of administrative simplification because he believes that the simplification of the rules is the crucial first step to give oxygen to businesses.

Pensions

Éric Zemmour thinks that the retirement age should be raised to 64.

Immigration and assimilation

Interviewed in August 2021 on his views on immigration in France, Zemmour declared: "We have to stop the flow. I'm not just talking about the illegals; I am thinking first of legal immigration. […] There is a process of replacing the population from the moment there are too many immigrants who no longer assimilate. It's inevitable."

A member of the French assimilationist tradition, Zemmour has strongly opposed mass immigration, and the current model of integrating immigrants which he considers to be too lenient, for a long time. In November 2008, he gave an interview to the monthly Le Choc du mois where he compared immigration to a "demographic tsunami". In 2007 he also came out in favour of the Thierry Mariani amendment, which would require genetic tests in order to qualify for family reunification. On numerous occasions, he has declared that he is for assimilation. In particular, he expresses a nostalgia for the era of his youth, the 1960s, when he believes French society was culturally more unified.

On 2 October 2021, in Lille, during a public meeting, Eric Zemmour recalled his very strong position in terms of migratory flow, pleading for an end to illegal and legal immigration in France, which, he specified, was in keeping with a proposal made in 1980 by Georges Marchais, then secretary general of the French Communist Party: "the oldest among you will remember the famous speech given by Georges Marchais forty years ago, in which he said 'we must stop illegal and legal immigration'; that's exactly what I'm saying today."

Zemmour has extensively promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, contending that France's population will be replaced by immigrants.

Zemmour has also supported Rattachism.

Human rights

Zemmour often expresses opinions that he describes as "anti-human-rights-doctrine", thus bringing himself in opposition to some politicians (Bernard Kouchner), writers (Bernard-Henri Lévy), as well as organisations advocating the right to humanitarian intervention, which he considers to be a form of neocolonialism.

Race and anti-racism issues

Zemmour says he would like to put on trial the anti-racism of the 1980s, which he considers, along with feminism, to be a "bien-pensant cause" derived from the "milieu of French and Western pseudo-elites" that the people will not follow in the least. He says that it was especially after having "read Pierre-André Taguieff" who is known for his positions and work on the Nouvelle Droite and anti-racism that he "understood that anti-racist progressivism was the successor of communism, with the same totalitarian methods developed by the Comintern during the 1930s". According to him, anti-racism is a tactic initiated by François Mitterrand to make people forget the left's turn to economic liberalism in 1983. He claims that anti-racism is an ideology implemented by former leftists who had had to give up their illusions. With immigrants, these people had found a kind of alternative revolutionary people.

Feminism and homosexuality

In Le premier sexe, he claims the existence of the "devirilisation" of society during the 20th century and asserts that women and homosexuals have been used as a reserve army to satisfy modern capitalism's need for consumers. He accuses feminists of being demagogues and verging into political correctness in denying or rejecting the history of French society and psychological work of Freud: "I note only that Freud is vehemently rejected today by all the bien-pensants, feminists and other activists for same-sex parents". He believes that man is by nature a sexual predator who uses violence. In a parallel to this definition of virility as sexual predation, he believes that certain eras defined the role of women better than others.

He believes the "gay ideology" to be one of the main means used to invite a "man to become a woman like the others", to adopt the behaviour of women. However, he differentiates homosexuals as individuals from gays as a group. In his book Petit Frère, a character ponders the place to be given to homosexual individuals: "In every traditional society, founded on shame and secrecy, respect for life and the fear of death, "gays" would have been stigmatised and isolated, like the lepers of old". Zemmour does not fail, afterwards, to explain that these are the views of characters in a novel.

Controversies and conflicts with opponents

The subjects Zemmour addresses as well as the positions he defends have earned him a number of strong opponents and supporters. According to an article by François Dufay, La fronde des intellos (literal translation: "The upheaval of the intellectuals"), in the June 2002 edition of Le Point, Jean-Marie Le Pen reportedly said that "[the] only three journalists who behave properly with respect to [him]" are Élisabeth Lévy, Éric Zemmour and Serge Moati. Zemmour noted during an interview: "I think he meant that with an ironic wink: it refers to his famous declaration fifteen years ago that caused such a scandal when he criticised Elkabbach, Levaï, who were all Jewish, and you will note that the three who he noted treat him well are also all Jewish... And he knows that quite well, and everyone knows that quite well".

Following a number of controversies after a talk show on Arte dedicated to miscegenation on 13 November 2008, as a result of his comments on races (that blacks and whites belonged to two different races and that this difference was discernible by skin colour, without ranking them hierarchically), Zemmour also published a reply in the weekly Vendredi. Faced with the critics caused by the views expressed by Éric Zemmour during the show, the deputy manager of programmes for the Arte channel distanced himself from these words but explained that nothing said was illegal.

On 25 March 2009, he filed a complaint against the French rapper Youssoupha for "criminal threats and public abuse" after the uploading of the song "Because of saying it" in which Zemmour was attacked ad hominem: "Because of judging our faces, people know, that talking heads often demonise the ghetto-dwellers, each time it blows up they say it's us, I put a price on the head of the one who silences this asshole Éric Zemmour". The rapper had clarified in a previous interview in the newspaper Le Parisien that he was not advocating silencing Zemmour by force, but rather by argument. The album was finally released on 12 October 2009, with an expurgated version of the controversial track in which Zemmour's name is scrambled out. On 26 October 2011, Zemmour won his suit against the rapper and the director general of EMI Music France, Valérie Queinnec.

On 5 March 2011, some voices were raised against Zemmour and called for Rémy Pflimlin, the CEO of France Télévisions, to suspend Zemmour's collaboration with France 2, which he refused to do, explaining: ""The public service is attached to humanist and republican values, but it is also the place where the diversity of opinions is expressed within the legal framework", he reminds those around him urging him to suspend Éric Zemmour's collaboration with France 2".

On 17 November 2015, four days after the 13 November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, Zemmour stated on RTL: "Instead of bombing Raqqa, France should bomb Molenbeek from which the Friday 13 commandos came". This caused outrage in Belgium. In a 24 March 2016 column, Zemmour added: "Molenbeeks, France is full of them. France creates them in abundance".

On 18 September 2018, a controversy arose around his opinion about the first name of columnist Hapsatou Sy on the TV programme Les terriens du dimanche hosted by Thierry Ardisson. His words "It's your first name that is an insult to France", adding "first names embody the history of France" were cut at the editing of the show but rebroadcast by Sy. She then asked him "What would you like my name to be?" to which he answered "Corinne, that would suit you very well". She decided to file a complaint against Zemmour.

In 2020, whilst commenting footage that showed four policemen hitting a black man in Paris, Zemmour responded to accusations of racism levelled at the involved policemen by saying "I can hardly see [them] getting up in the morning and telling themselves: 'Here, I'm going to break my career and I'm going to hit a black guy'", although he recognised "that does not mean that they were right" to do what they did. He also questioned the victim's judicial history.

In May 2021, Zemmour was publicly accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour by several women, but no judicial proceedings followed.

In September 2011, in his book La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot, Zemmour states Seine-Saint-Denis—the northern suburbs of Paris known for their large Muslim population—has become a "foreign enclave under the reign of Allah", a remark which angered local politicians.

On 11 September 2021, Zemmour's declaration about the 2012 Toulouse and Montauban shootings caused controversy among Jewish communities in France.

Cases before French jurisdictions

As of 2021, Éric Zemmour has been convicted once by French jurisdictions for provocation to racial discrimination and once for hate against Muslims in 2018. As of November 2021, another trial for incitation for racial hatred is currently undergoing. He did not appeal his 2011 conviction. A 2018 conviction is currently pending in front of the European Court of Human Rights and thus not definitive. A 2020 conviction was overturned upon appeal in 2021, as Zemmour was again cleared of all charges by the court.

Conviction for incitement of racial discrimination

The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) decided to launch legal proceedings against Éric Zemmour for his views after the 6 March 2010 broadcast of Salut les Terriens presented by Thierry Ardisson, where he promoted his book Mélancolie française. He declared during the show that: "French people with an immigrant background were profiled because most traffickers are Blacks and Arabs. ... It is a fact." The same day, he asserted on France Ô that employers "had the right to refuse Arabs or blacks". On 23 March 2010, he wrote a letter to the LICRA explaining his views. In this letter he particularly observed the views of Christian Delorme before a parliamentary commission of the Senate. He cited the book L'Islam dans les prisons by Farhad Khosrokhavar, who confirmed the figure of 70 or 80% of "Muslims in prison" estimated in a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Justice. Following this letter, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) decided to withdraw its legal proceedings against Éric Zemmour.

On 30 March 2010, Éric Zemmour was summoned by SOS Racisme to appear in court on 29 June 2010, where he "will have to answer for the offense of racial defamation and incitement to racial hatred." During the trial, Zemmour received testimony in his favour from journalist Robert Ménard, his fellow columnist Éric Naulleau, writer Denis Tillinac, politician Claude Goasguen and essayist Xavier Raufer.

On 18 February 2011, in a first judgment, the 17th chamber of the court of Paris acquitted Éric Zemmour of the offense of defamation for the remarks on the traffickers. These words may be "shocking", writes the court, but they are not "defamatory". On the other hand, the media man was condemned to a 1,000 euros fine suspended for having, on France Ô, "justified an illegal discriminatory practice – discrimination in hiring – by presenting it as lawful". In a second judgment, the 17th chamber only retained the offense of incitement of racial discrimination and sentenced Éric Zemmour to a suspended fine of 1,000 euros.

On 2 March 2011, invited by Hervé Novelli and given an ovation by the members of Parliament from the Union for a Popular Movement at the national convention of The Reformers, Éric Zemmour suggested doing away with the laws on racial discrimination, the memorial laws, prosecutions by anti-racist organisations and subsidies to them in a speech to UMP members of Parliament.

In August 2021, interviewed on this conviction for "incitement to hatred", Zemmour replies: "I was condemned for an offense of opinion. […] I am not a delinquent, I am a dissident."

Cases won by Éric Zemmour

2008: Defamation complaint against his novel Petit Frère

In 2008, following the publication of his novel Petit Frère, in which a Jew is attacked by a young North African in a parking lot, Zemmour admits to having been inspired by a news item that occurred five years earlier: the murder of Sébastien Selam by Adel Amastaibou. Selam was a childhood friend and next door neighbour of Amastaibou. Zemmour was sued by the family of Selam who demanded the book be banned. According to the family lawyer, in the novel, the victim is described as a "bad Jew, his mother defamed and his grandfather accused of the worst evils". Zemmour won the case.

2014: RTL column attacked for "incitement of racial hatred"

On 17 June 2014, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA), seized by the Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN), "strongly warns" RTL after a column by Eric Zemmour broadcast on 6 May, judging the remarks made "likely to encourage discriminatory behavior vis-à-vis expressly designated populations, and to be able to incite hatred or violence against them". The incriminated words are: "Our territory, deprived of the protection of its old borders, is reviving in the cities, but also in the countryside, with the great raids, the looting of yesteryear. The Normans, the Huns, the Arabs, the great invasions after the fall of Rome are now replaced by bands of Chechens, Roma, Kosovars, North Africans, Africans, who rob, violate or rob." The CSA also considered that RTL had "failed, by allowing the broadcasting of these remarks, to control the broadcast", recalling that the chronicle had been communicated beforehand by its author to the managers of the station. Prosecuted for "incitement to racial hatred" for these comments, Eric Zemmour was released in September 2015 by the Paris Criminal Court, which ruled that "as excessive, shocking or provocative as these comments may seem", they do not apply "only to a fraction of the targeted communities and not to them as a whole". The Court of Appeal confirmed the acquittal on 22 June 2016.

2014: Remarks on Muslims in the Corriere della Sera

On 30 October 2014, he told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera: "Muslims have their civil code, it is the Koran. They live among themselves, in the outskirts. The French were forced to leave". The journalist then asks him: "But don't you think that it is unrealistic to think that we take millions of people, we put them on planes to get rid of them?" Zemmour replied, "I know, it's unrealistic, but the story is surprising. Who would have said in 1940 that a million pieds-noirs, twenty years later, would have left Algeria to return to France? Or that after the war five or six million Germans would have abandoned central and eastern Europe where they had lived for centuries?" On 17 December 2015, Zemmour was sentenced at first instance to a fine of 3,000 euros, for inciting hatred against Muslims. The conviction was confirmed by the Paris Court of Appeal on 17 November. In January 2018, the Cour de Cassation overturned the conviction. Éric Zemmour was released on 29 November 2018, by the Paris Court of Appeal, the judges considering that "it is not proven that Eric Zemmour, prosecuted as an interviewee, knew that this newspaper was published in France".

2016: Accusation of defamation by Cécile Duflot for comments on the Baupin affair

On 12 May 2016, Éric Zemmour declared on RTL that by publishing Denis Baupin's telephone exchanges, "Mediapart violated all the rules of respect for private life" and that these journalists are "also and above all the consenting instruments of Cécile Duflot's political revenge against Emmanuelle Cosse, Denis Baupin's companion, who betrayed her for a ministerial dish of lentils". On 6 February 2018, the Paris Criminal Court released Éric Zemmour, finding that his allegations against Cécile Duflot were not defamatory.

2017: Comments on discrimination, the CSA's decision targeting Zemmour on RTL cancelled by the Conseil d'État

On 2 February 2017, Éric Zemmour declared on RTL: "Non-discrimination is misrepresented as a synonym of equality whereas over time it has become a machine to disintegrate the Nation, the family, society in the name of the rights of an individual king". On 14 June 2017, RTL was put on formal notice by the CSA for having broadcast a "praise of discrimination" without any "contradiction or putting into perspective". On 15 October 2018, the Conseil d'Etat cancelled the decision of the CSA.

2019: Speech against Muslims at the right-wing convention

On 25 September 2020, the Paris court sentenced Zemmour to a fine of 10,000 euros for "insult and incitement to hatred", because of the comments he had made in September 2019 during a speech to the against Muslims and immigration, at the opening of the right-wing convention organized by relatives of Marion Maréchal. In its judgment, the court said that, "by distinguishing among the French all the Muslims opposed to the 'ethnic French' and by designating them, as well as the Muslim immigrants living in France, not only as criminals perpetrators of the terrorist attacks. 2015 but like former colonized people who became colonizers", the remarks made "constitute an exhortation, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, to discrimination and hatred towards the Muslim community and its religion".

Zemmour appealed. The appeal hearing took place on 2 June 2021. The Paris Court of Appeal acquitted him on 8 September 2021. In the reasons for its judgment, the court of appeal ruled that "none of the statements pursued target all Africans, immigrants or Muslims but only fractions of these groups". "There is no justification for remarks targeting a group of people as a whole because of their origin or their belonging or not belonging to a particular ethnicity, nation, race or religion," the court added, "from where it follows that the prosecuted offenses are not constituted." The general prosecutor's office has filed a cassation appeal, which is pending.

Publications

Non-fiction

• 1995: Balladur, immobile à grands pas, Grasset ISBN 978-2-246-48971-9
• 1998: Le Livre noir de la droite, Grasset et Fasquelle ISBN 978-2-246-56251-1
• 1998: Le Coup d'État des juges, Grasset et Fasquelle ISBN 978-2-246-52551-6
• 1998: Une certaine idée de la France, collectif, France-Empire ISBN 978-2-7048-0872-4
• 2000: Les Rats de garde, in collaboration with Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, Stock ISBN 978-2-234-05217-8
• 2002: L'Homme qui ne s'aimait pas, Balland ISBN 978-2-7158-1408-0
• 2006: Le premier sexe, Denoël, ISBN 978-2-207-25744-9 – republished J'ai lu, 2009
• 2010: Mélancolie française, Fayard /Denoël ISBN 978-2-213-65450-8 – republished Le Livre de Poche, 2011.
• 2011: Z comme Zemmour, Le Cherche midi ISBN 978-2-7491-1865-9
• 2012: Le Bûcher des vaniteux, Albin Michel ISBN 9782226240248
• 2013: Le Bûcher des vaniteux 2, Albin Michel ISBN 9782226245410
• 2014: Le Suicide français, Albin Michel ISBN 9782226254757
• 2016: Un quinquennat pour rien, Albin Michel ISBN 9782226320087
• 2018: Destin français, Albin Michel ISBN 9782226320070
• 2021: La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot, Rubempré ISBN 9782957930500 (translation of title: France has not said its last word yet)

Novels

• 1999: Le Dandy rouge, Plon ISBN 978-2-259-19058-9
• 2004: L'Autre, Denoël ISBN 978-2-207-25496-7
• 2008: Petit Frère, Denoël ISBN 978-2-207-25668-8 – republished J'ai lu, 2009

Prizes

• 2010 Prix de la Liberté d'expression (Enquête & Débat)
• 2010 Prix du livre incorrect
• 2011 Prix Richelieu (Association de Défense de la langue française)
• 2015 Prix Combourg-Chateaubriand (Académie Chateaubriand)

Books on Éric Zemmour

• Chems-Eddine Hafiz, De quoi Zemmour est devenu le nom, Éditions du Moment, Paris, 2010, page 128 ISBN 978-2-35417-107-0
• Mohamed Sifaoui, Éric Zemmour, une supercherie française, Armand Colin, Paris, 2010, pages 251 ISBN 978-2-200-25559-6
• Shlomo Sand, The End of the French Intellectual, a critique of three French intellectuals including Zemmour

External links

• Media related to Éric Zemmour at Wikimedia Commons

• Selection of videos of Zemmour