"Roots"

On September 17 in Toulon, 800 people are waiting for Eric Zemmour in front of the convention center for his first meeting-like conference.

Lucie, a 26-year-old English teacher, wears a t-shirt celebrating the "roots" of France.

For her, Eric Zemmour is "the last chance to save France".

She resigned from National Education after "threats from students, most of them from immigrant backgrounds".

Chloe, 70, is delighted that the polemicist addresses themes "that nobody talks about" such as the "great replacement", a conspiracy theory according to which the European population is replaced by a non-European population.

For this painter, he "makes all other policies out of date".

Gérard, 70, a retired Fillon voter in 2017 and abstainer in the second round, would like him to "impose his themes on immigration, reindustrialisation, the power of judges", like that "all the candidates will be forced to to take hold of".

People wait in front of the Palais des Congrès in Toulon to attend Eric Zemmour's first conference, September 17, 2021 Nicolas TUCAT AFP / Archives

For him, the civil war "we see it every day, disseminated in the districts".

He is "of course" in favor of "remigration", ie the return of immigrants to their country of origin.

"It is a question of roots, of way of life, of values. Those who do not want it leave."

Enzo, 19, a business student, faces a dilemma.

He has just joined the RN of Marine Le Pen but at the same time welcomes the "clarity" of Zemmour's speech.

"Hussar"

On October 4 in Paris, in front of the Palais des Congrès Porte Maillot, French Action activists distribute their newspaper which asks "who is colonized, them or us?".

Marion, 25, employee of a champagne house and voter of Fillon in 2017, came to listen to the debate between Eric Zemmour and the philosopher Michel Onfray, who will jointly denounce, in front of 3,700 people, the "climate of civil war", until wondering about the need or not to "arm" the French.

Eric Zemmour during a signing session for his book "France has not said its last word", September 17, 2021 in Toulon Nicolas TUCAT AFP / Archives

She "does not agree with everything" the polemicist says but appreciates "his way of advocating historic France and its values".

For Alexandre, a 28-year-old lawyer from Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), Eric Zemmour "he is a hussar who will dare to act" while "the RN is much left-handed".

Fifteen days later, in Versailles, among the 1,500 spectators Pascal, 60, manager of a supermarket in Asnières, paid 60 euros, the benefactor rate, and "feels a sincerity" at Eric Zemmour.

Married to a Peruvian, he employs Senegalese and Ivorians whom he helps to obtain papers.

"They are foreigners but people who want to get out of it. France cannot live without foreigners, but this is not contradictory with what Zemmour says", he said, complaining of the insecurity. .

Mathilde, 31, who works in a communication agency, sees "the evidence of what he says" since the 2015 attacks. "He is Jewish, Algerian, he has real legitimacy to say what he says ".

Eric Zemmour announces his presidential candidacy in a video, November 30, 2021 in Paris Thomas SAMSON AFP

"The danger for women is not Zemmour" - who considers that they are "the goal and the booty of any gifted man" - "it is when I walk alone at night", adds the young woman .

"Not racist"

Thierry, a farmer in the Dordogne in his sixties, traveled an hour and a half to the Bordeaux convention center on November 12 to listen with 1,300 other people to the polemicist, twice convicted of incitement to hatred .

"She disappointed me Marine Le Pen. As soon as you say a word, you are racist and you are ejected. You have to be able to call a spade a spade", said this former voter of the RN.

For him, the RN candidate competing with Eric Zemmour "has weakened" on Islam, which she considers compatible with the Republic unlike the polemicist, while "our chapels will be replaced by mosques".

On Pétain who would have saved French Jews, according to Eric Zemmour, a thesis disputed by historians, he says that "historians are like journalists, they attack non-stop. If one day Zemmour comes to power he must me transfer all that ".

Eric Zemmour AFP

Jacky Morel, retired automotive journalist who "loved to watch" Eric Zemmour on CNews, read Renaud Camus, theorist of the "big replacement", and finds "a pity that we passed the Karcher only on the highway".

"I am not racist. In Bali where I live 6 months of the year, they are all black. But I have a problem with the number and customs that are not mine", says this opponent of the health pass .

"Hand of Steel"

In London on November 19, among the 400 people who came to hear him, Amir, a French entrepreneur of Iranian origin, who has lived in London for 15 years and is "not in agreement with the English multicultural model", deplores that 'in France "we welcome a lot of people without explaining to them what it means to be French".

© 2021 AFP