Zemmour's middle finger: "This episode shows the difficulty of transitioning his campaign"

Europe 1 7:34 p.m., November 27, 2021

INTERVIEW

It is the political image of the day. Saturday, at the end of his trip to Marseille, Eric Zemmour was targeted by a middle finger from a passerby, before responding with the same gesture. A scene which comes to end a complicated stay in the Phocaean city, between wandering in a district of the deserted Panier and demonstrations of opponents to the polemicist. On Europe 1, the guests of Pierre de Vilno in any case pointed out the gap between the rudeness of his gesture and the presidential ambitions of the ex-journalist. 

"It is not easy to go from the stature of polemicist, journalist, writer, to an undeclared candidate, but still in the countryside", remarks the journalist Françoise Laborde.

"And there, we have the feeling that Eric Zemmour has trouble changing his costume".

Basically, she continues, "when he was a writer, he had to deal with people who were already his readers and who had a favorable prejudice towards him. He was applauded and celebrated, but there he came across the real country where there are people who don't like him, tell him a little harshly and he doesn't have the nerves to calm down. "

"It's a job, politics"

More generally, Françoise Laborde points to the lack of organization of Eric Zemmour's campaign. "It's a job, politics," she shouts. "Meeting, walking in the streets, it's a job. When you are a candidate for the presidency of the Republic, you do not wander in the streets with three friends and a press officer."

"This episode shows the difficulty of transition of the campaign of Eric Zemmour", abounds Guillaume Tabard, of Figaro.

"A campaign is about going out to meet people and that cannot be improvised."

Describing Eric Zemmour's gesture as "rude and inelegant", he believes that "it is part of the job to prepare for insults and know how to respond to them".

However, he recalls the stormy reception given to Eric Zemmour by demonstrators throughout the trip.

"We must denounce this gesture, but also the fact that activists are preventing someone who does not share their ideas from expressing themselves."

"When we refer to De Gaulle, we do not draw a middle finger"

For Maxime Lledo, essayist, "Eric Zemmour's political problem has just been perfectly summed up".

And the explanations of the team of the quasi-candidate, which evoke an instinctive gesture, confirms according to him the difficulty that the latter has "to apologize when he makes a mistake, which everyone is able to see".

Finally, Amine El-Khatmi, president of the Republican Spring, recalls that Eric Zemmour has been giving "lessons in behavior to the political class" for years.

"He refers to General de Gaulle constantly (...), when we refer to General de Gaulle, we do not draw a middle finger like that at the first opportunity."