Young people of "Generation Z" gathered in front of the Paris Criminal Court on Wednesday.

They wave a French flag, one holds a placard.

“Zemmour Président!” Is written under the photo of the right-wing extremist publicist who has ambitions for the presidency.

In polls, "Z", as his younger followers call him, has already overtaken presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

In the courtroom, it is about one of Éric Zemmour's statements, which catapulted him into the bearer of hope for an electorate who thinks they are in a war of civilization.

“Unaccompanied minors have no business with us, they are thieves, they are murderers, they are rapists, that's all they are.

We have to identify them, "said Zemmour on September 29, 2020 in the program" Face à l'info ".

Michaela Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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The program, broadcast daily by the news channel C'News at the prime time of the evening, made Zemmour famous.

But the tirade against underage migrants went too far for two dozen clubs, including SOS Racism and the League for Human Rights.

They filed charges of inciting racial hatred and racial abuse.

The CSA radio and television council sanctioned the “call to hatred and violence” back in March;

the broadcaster C'News had to pay a fine of 200,000 euros.

Zemmour was convicted twice in the past for inciting hatred. It didn't cause him to moderate himself. In his most recent book “France did not speak the last word”, he makes fun of the attempt to tame him with a court ruling. "Over the years, public bodies alongside the judges have taken on the mission of controlling the mind," he writes. He makes fun of Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti, who called him an “overflow of hatred” and accused him of causing “a civil war”. Zemmour suggests that he feels vindicated by the events:Two weeks after his "politically incorrect" statement about unaccompanied migrant minors, a young Chechen beheaded the teacher Samuel Paty with a knife.

There is already an election campaign staff

The 63-year-old publicist was represented by his lawyers in the courtroom on Wednesday. He let it be known that he saw the process “just another intimidation maneuver of his political opponents”. Zemmour is already fighting on another front: He wants to stand by Poland's side, which is protecting Europe from migrants who allegedly shout “Allahu Akbar”. “By protecting itself, Poland is teaching a lesson to all of Europe,” said Zemmour. Without citing the source, he distributed a video recording allegedly made on the border between Poland and Belarus. The recordings are obviously intended to arouse fears: gloomy figures rush out of the darkness towards barbed wire fences, try to fasten ladders and are pushed back by border guards in uniform. The sound quality is so badthat you can only hear “Allahu Akbar” with a lot of imagination.

But Zemmour is not interested in facts at all; he is happy with any occasion to stir up concerns about foreign infiltration and an Islamic invasion of Europe. He accuses the government under President Macron of "fear the barbed wire fences more than the jihadists". His theme is the fall of the West, which surrendered to Islam in the name of humanistic ideals. He draws his ideas from Oswald Spengler and Maurice Barrès. Most of all, he was influenced by the novel “The Uprooted” (1897), which is little known in Germany, about seven “uprooted” Lorraine residents in Paris who grasp the importance of national reconsideration at the grave of Napoleon or at the funeral of the writer Victor Hugo. Zemmour comes up with the aim of a national resurrection.

Probably at the beginning of December, just in time for the election of the Republicans (LR), he wants to declare his presidential candidacy. In the past few weeks he has formed his future election campaign staff. The leader is supposed to be the 28-year-old top civil servant Sarah Knafo from the Court of Auditors (Cour de Comptes), who is currently on leave and who is not only politically oriented towards Zemmour. A headquarters in Paris has already been rented, there is a chief financial officer and delegates who court elected officials in the province.

Like all French presidential candidates, Zemmour needs 500 signatures from mayors named godparents and other regional politicians. Marine Le Pen finds it just as difficult to counter the triumphant advance of Zemmour as the chairman of the umbrella organization of the Jewish organizations CRIF, Francis Caliphate. Like Zemmour's ancestors, the caliphate comes from Algeria and is particularly outraged by the way the publicist is making political capital out of justified fears of anti-Semitic attacks. The caliphate has described Zemmour as a “useful Jew” who allows himself to be drawn into an unworthy clash of civilizations.

The “not-yet-presidential candidate” has found an important ally in the Breton billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

Bolloré has built up a media empire that includes, in addition to the TV channels C'News and Canal Plus, print products such as Paris Match and Journal du Dimanche as well as the radio station Europe 1.

The Elysée Palace is already talking about “ECB”, which does not mean the European Central Bank, but “Eric Zemmour Bolloré”.

France is witnessing a large-scale attempt by a media mogul to influence democratic elections.

"Donald Trump got into the White House from reality shows, but he was a Republican candidate, while Zemmour is only the candidate of a media company," analyzed former French President François Hollande.