Islam, “great replacement”, place of women … in his book, Eric Zemmour rehashes his obsessions – Le Monde

Eric Zemmour has moments of lucidity, but he knows how to recover very quickly. The astronomical prints of his books, he admits, have ” turn the head ” : “I told myself vainly that I had pulled the country out of its denial”, writes the essayist, “Drunk on myself, I was convinced that I had won the battle of ideas on my own”, by declining on CNews, its “Media triumph”, what the National Gathering has been repeating for fifty years. He is still amazed today by his own talent in his latest book, France has not said its last word (Rubempré, 352 p., 21.90 euros). Eric Zemmour either, he also tends to confuse his destiny with that of the country, like de Gaulle or Napoleon, characters he revere.

Basically, the polemicist who still refuses to say whether he will be a candidate for the 2022 presidential election is not advancing anything new: for him, the “Migratory submersion” threatens the very existence of the nation. “The ‘great replacement’ is neither a myth nor a conspiracy, but a relentless process, he writes. This identity question makes all the others subordinate, even the most essential. “ The book is in no way a program, and is entirely devoted to this obsession, between a misogyny and a homophobia solidly assumed.

He sees Muslim immigration as a “Exterminating radicalization”, and according to him civil war is in sight. “Seine-Saint-Denis is the emblem of this great replacement”, writes Eric Zemmour, who compares the department to Kosovo, ravaged by war in 1998-1999, where nearly 13,000 people lost their lives: “Kosovo is the future of Seine-Saint-Denis; Seine-Saint-Denis is the future of France ”, slice the journalist.

Calibrated wickedness

On the form, Eric Zemmour ensures that he was inspired by Things seen, by Victor Hugo: brief chronological paragraphs, from 2006 to 2020, as in The French Suicide (Albin Michel, 2014), each devoted to a theme or a character, and mainly to his dinners. There he distils patiently calibrated wickedness against the political staff and shoots in the crowd with delight. Marine Le Pen is relatively spared – it is about not insulting the future – Vincent Bolloré too, and Zemmour has affection only for Philippe Séguin and Charles Pasqua.

For everyone else, dead or alive, the comment borders on insult. Francois Bayrou, “This good Béarnese peephole”, is a “Schoolyard Machiavelli” uphill “Twisted shots of the sub-prefecture”; Dominique Baudis, “A somewhat fat professional seducer”, Michel Noir, that “Nobody dares to call ‘big ass’ anymore”, corn “We feel that he misses it” ; Valérie Pécresse’s book is “Of a rare emptiness”, Etienne Mougeotte, when he was directing Le Figaro, was “Servile and obsequious” ; Jean-François Copé always wears his “Unstoppable narcissism”.

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