Paris (AFP)

Eric Zemmour holds a "far-right speech", underlined Monday the ex-minister (LR) Jean-François Cope, calling on the right to "hold on" and exclude any alliance with the polemicist, possible presidential candidate .

"We have reached a level of delirium which, in the general intellectual indifference", or "the absence of indignation, trivialization", "begins to weigh heavily", lamented the former president of the UMP on franceinfo.

Asked about the remarks of the president of LR Christian Jacob for whom the polemicist is not of the extreme right, Mr. Cope said to think the opposite: Eric Zemmour "uses the springs of the extreme right, (...) l 'far right of Charles Maurras through the idea of ​​saying + it was better before +, an antiphon from the far right of the nineteenth century, and secondly the theory of the great replacement, today by Muslims, says Mr. Zemmour , but under Charles Maurras it was the Jews and the Italians ".

"At some point we have to realize that we are hearing with Mr. Zemmour a speech of the extreme right," insisted Mr. Cope, also mayor of Meaux.

Moreover, the "excesses" of the polemicist, including his wish to oblige to give French first names and his repeated remarks exonerating France of responsibility in the roundup of the Vél d'Hiv ', end by "fading" Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Assembly for the presidential election, he said.

The polemicist for his part attacked the Republicans (LR) on Sunday, "a party of notable centrists" which he accuses of having "betrayed the right" Gaullist and "RPR" which he claims to be.

In this context, Valérie Pécresse, the president of Ile-de-France who hopes to represent the right in the presidential election of 2022, believes that if he ended up declaring himself a candidate for 2022, he could not participate in the December congress. during which the LR militants will choose the candidate of the right, "because he accepts the idea of ​​a right-far-right rally", while "there is an intangible red line: we do not accept alliances with the extreme right ".

And Jean-François Copé underlines: "We have been holding firm with Le Pen for twenty years; why would we suddenly give up with Zemmour, who uses exactly the same common thread?"

However, some dissonant voices are raised in LR.

Thus, LR MEP François-Xavier Bellamy said he "did not see what would prevent" such participation because we need "the most open and broad dialogue to be able to make the strongest possible choice", t he justified Monday on Public Senate.

Before him, the deputy LR Eric Ciotti, candidate for the nomination of the Republicans, had affirmed in early September that he would vote Zemmour in the event of a duel between him and Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election.

An assertion that he did not, however, reiterate in an interview with BFMTV on Sunday, during which he said his "conviction that the only candidate who can beat Emmanuel Macron will be a candidate from the Republicans", and that an accession to the Eric Zemmour's second round would lead to the victory of Emmanuel Macron.

Jean-François Cope, himself, concedes: Eric Zemmour, credited with 10-11% of voting intentions in the first round of the presidential election if he was a candidate, could turn out to be indirectly "a reinforcement" for the right since he chides on the voting intentions for Marine Le Pen, given until then in the second round by the polls against the outgoing president.

© 2021 AFP