Eric Zemmour
Eric Zemmour is a French writer and TV commentator who was sacked for implying Muslims ought to be deported and predicting a 'civil war' would stem from conflicts connected to the Muslim population of France.[1]
Contents
Activities
Zemmour was previously convicted of inciting racial hatred in 2011 after claiming that most drug dealers are 'blacks and Arabs'.[1]
He is author of a book called The French Suicide, which reportedly 'argues that France's identity is being destroyed by factors including immigration, homosexuality and feminism'.[1] It has sold over 400,000 copies.[2]
New Reactionaries
According to the BBC journalist Hugh Schofield, Zemmour is a prominent members of what some have called the 'neo-reactionnaires' (new reactionaries) a 'a loose group of writers and thinkers' who represent a 'new intellectual force in France' challenging 'the disastrous post-1968 left-wing consensus' and seeking to 'shake up debate on issues like immigration, Islam and national identity'. Schofield notes that critics believe they are 'providing spurious philosophical cover for the extremism of the National Front'.[2] He reports that ironically Zemmour admires the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci who emphasised the importance of culture in political struggle.[2]
Others deemed to be new reactionaries include aesthete and prolific writer Renaud Camus and philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.[2]
Views
On the nation, immigration and Islam
Zemmour has complained in a BBC article:
- The sovereignty of the nation has disappeared. The state no longer has the power to revive the economy, or to defend our borders. The state is powerless. There are parts of France which feel like a different continent today. There are neighbourhoods which are completely Muslim - in their appearance, in their shops, in their tradition. And at the same time we have the constant process of Americanisation. Our budget is controlled by Brussels. We have no currency. Our army has to follow Washington's orders.That is what I mean by destruction.[2]
Implied support for the deportation of Muslims
Zemmour was interviewed by an Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in October 2014, and though the transcript was subsequently deleted it had already been copied and translated into French.[1]
In the interview Zemmour claimed that Muslims 'live among themselves' in suburbs from which French people have been forced to leave. When asked whether he was proposing the deportation of the 5 million French Muslims he reportedly replied 'I know it's unrealistic, but history is often surprising. Who would have thought in 1940 that a million pieds-noirs [Europeans living in North Africa], twenty years later, would have left Algeria to return to France? Or that after the war five or six million Germans would leave Central-Eastern Europe where they had lived for centuries?'[1]
Reactions
When former French education minister Jean-Luc Mélenchon drew attention to Zemmour's comments in December 2014, many leading French politicians condemned his arguments.
Zemmour was sacked from his 11-year job on an iTELE chat show. A Twitter campaign with the hashtag #ZemmourDeporteMoi (Zemmour would deport me) was also sparked.
But Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National defended Zemmour and said his sacking was 'loathsome censorship'.[1]
Contact
- Twitter: twitter.com/zemmourinfos
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Dan Bloom, France embroiled in free speech row after Islamophobic TV presenter is sacked for saying Muslims 'should be deported to prevent civil war, Daily Mail, 22 December 2014
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Hugh Schofield, France shaken up by Zemmour and 'new reactionaries', BBC News, 14 December 2014
