Toulon (AFP)
The polemicist Eric Zemmour, who no longer hides his presidential ambitions for 2022, will "discuss with the French" Friday in Toulon on the occasion of the promotion of a new political essay with a pre-campaign taste.
"For the moment I am not a candidate" for the Elysee, repeats on all sets the sulphurous columnist who nevertheless "wants" and "is not afraid" to present himself but wants to "choose his moment".
Friday evening in Toulon (Var), he presents his new book entitled "France has not said its last word" (Rubempré editions), then will have an exchange with the room, before a signing session.
This is the usual format for promoting his books, assures his entourage.
Some opponents demonstrated in front of the Palais des Congrès, where his supporters responded by singing a Marseillaise.
She voted Marine Le Pen in the first round of the 2017 presidential election but white in the second, "disappointed" by her debate against Mr. Macron.
- It "makes old-fashioned" -
Former voter of Nicolas Sarkozy, who voted white in 2017, Chloe, 73, painter, greets Mr. Zemmour "a brilliant man who speaks cash and out of date all other policies".
She wants to "stop immigration" because of the "bigger replacement".
Saturday, Eric Zemmour will be in Nice where, in addition to the dedications, he will stroll on the flower market and meet some young supporters of "Generation Z".
Eric Zemmour's book "France has not said its last word", September 17, 2021 in Toulon Nicolas TUCAT AFP
With folded arms, this fervent supporter of the conspiracy theory of the "great replacement" (of the European population by an immigrant population which organizes it, editor's note) poses on the cover of his book in front of a French flag which flies in the wind.
"I was inspired by a poster of Donald Trump", he says, eager at this stage "to impose" his themes which obsess him: immigration, Islam and "the existence of the French people" .
But the essay that he himself edited, after Albin Michel's refusal to publish it given his "intention to engage in the presidential election", does not include proposals as expected from a potential candidate.
His book, which begins with a spelling mistake, looks more like social chronicles based on his exchanges with various personalities.
Proposals or not, the fascination or repulsion that this supporter of remigration (return of immigrants to their country of origin) generates, and the media interest it arouses, delight him.
Eric Zemmour in Toulon for the promotion of his book "France has not said its last word", September 17, 2021 Nicolas TUCAT AFP
"As a candidate or not as a candidate, I have already succeeded" in imposing immigration, says Eric Zemmour on RTL.
And "yes" I am in the ambiguity of a candidacy and "I can make this last as long as it is in my interest".
- "Colonize France" -
After stopping his weekly column at Le Figaro to free up his weekends, he will have more time during the week without his daily show on CNews, which he had to leave after the CSA's decision to count his speaking time.
The polemicist has multiplied the signals of a candidacy this summer, starting with posters "Zemmour president" posted at the end of June in several cities on the initiative of the association "Les Amis d'Eric Zemmour", which joined a party funding structure, approved on July 1.
Then his supporters said at the end of August that they had collected "a hundred" sponsorships of elected officials for 2022, out of the 500 needed.
Posters to support Eric Zemmour's candidacy for the presidential election, June 29, 2021 in Paris Ludovic MARIN AFP / Archives
Eric Zemmour is "philosophically for" the death penalty and understands "the difficult ends of the month".
But its "priority" remains identity, for which its most divisive proposal is to force children to bear a "French" first name because "to call your child Mohamed is to colonize France".
He admires the conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who is due to chair a conference on the family in Budapest at the end of September where Mr. Zemmour and former FN MP Marion Maréchal are announced.
His positions regularly lead to legal action.
Several times released, however, he was twice convicted of inciting racial hatred.
Marine Le Pen, to whom he gives a cold sweat, believes that France is not waiting for "a Trump" and that Mr. Zemmour, credited with 7 to 10% of the vote, will not go to the end of a candidacy, according to the latest polls.
© 2021 AFP