Why Zemmour and Pécresse are making their first candidate trip to Armenia

Valérie Pécresse, candidate of the Les Républicains (LR) party for the French presidential election in 2022, during a press conference in Yerevan, December 21, 2021. AFP - KAREN MINASYAN

Text by: Anthony Lattier Follow

5 mins

Like Éric Zemmour two weeks ago, Valérie Pécresse is in Armenia for her first trip abroad as a candidate for the presidential election.

With the same message, and the same objective. 

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Three million inhabitants, but highly symbolic. Armenia, a small state in the Caucasus, is first and foremost the country of origin of one of the most important communities in France. It is above all a predominantly Christian country in a region dominated by Islam. A country also

which lost a war a year ago for the control of Nagorno-Karabakh

against Azerbaijani forces, supported by Turkey. 

For these reasons, traveling to Armenia allows French presidential candidates to send pledges to several electorates, in particular the Catholic electorate.

The far-right candidate Éric Zemmour was not mistaken in choosing to make his first trip abroad a few days after the officialization of his candidacy.

He pointed out that Armenia was a " 

Christian nation

 " in the middle of an " 

Islamic ocean

 ", drawing a parallel with the growing and threatening presence, from his point of view, of Muslims in France.

A reading shared for several years in conservative Catholic circles. 

"Foreshadowing of what might lie in wait for Catholics" 

The subliminal message, the great story that is told by these circles, is that Christianity is an old story and that it is today endangered by young and more dynamic religions like Islam,"

explains the sociologist Erwan Lecœur, specialist in populism and the far right.

This story has been on the minds of a number of conservative Catholics for several decades and it guides a number of political behaviors 

”. 

For some Catholics, the fate of Eastern Christians would be the foreshadowing of what could, in the near future, lie in wait for French Catholics due to the radicalization of the Muslim community and the modification of demographic balances 

", abounds Jérôme Fourquet , director of the Opinion and business strategies department of the Ifop polling institute, 

in a note published on Tuesday by

Le Point

. This story according to which a "struggle for civilization" is being played out in this region of the world with echoes in France has been taken up by right-wing politicians for several years. 

The defense of Eastern Christians by the French right is not new. In the 1980s, it was in favor of those in Lebanon that French Catholics mobilized. This movement experienced a new lease of life in the 2010s with the persecutions and massacres of Christians by the Islamic State group. A mobilization that meets a strong echo within the right and the radical right, certain politicians, like the MEP Thierry Mariani, even going so far as to defend the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad because he is fighting against Daesh. 

Mobilized on the international scene, French Catholics - at least some of them - were also mobilized at the same time in France, within the Manif pour tous against the opening of marriage to same-sex couples.

“ 

La Manif pour tous reactivated Catholic networks that were no longer as important as before.

The right then took an interest in them again,

 ”explains Erwan Lecoeur. 

Valérie Pécresse in the wake of François Fillon 

The 2017 presidential candidate, former Prime Minister François Fillon managed to capture this tidal wave.

Catholic, close to the Common Sense movement, an offshoot of the Manif pour tous, he visited Iraqi Kurdistan and Lebanon several times.

During the 2016 right-wing primary, he posed as a defender of Eastern Christians by slaying the Islamist peril in France.

A year earlier, in June 2015, he had notably organized, with Valérie Pécresse, a rally in support of Eastern Christians at the Winter Circus.

The result is clear: " 

During the first round of the primary, 59% of Republicans sympathizers declaring themselves to be practicing Catholics voted for him,

 " recalls Jérôme Fourquet. 

Valérie Pécresse is now multiplying the signals in the direction of these same conservative Catholics.

She chose herself as campaign director Patrick Stefanini, who was already that of François Fillon in 2017. By going to Armenia two weeks after her designation as a candidate for the right, the president of the Île-de-France region s' in the wake of the former Prime Minister of Nicolas Sarkozy.

And as if to better show it, she is accompanied by Bruno Retailleau, her former right-hand man. 

► To read also: Presidential 2022: in Armenia, Valérie Pécresse addresses the Catholics of France

But in her conquest of the Catholic electorate, the candidate Les Républicains will have to scramble with Éric Zemmour, who according to polls manages to capture some of those who voted François Fillon in 2017. “ 

There is clearly between Valérie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour a competition on this electorate which is not very numerous (10 to 15% of the population) but which mobilizes strongly,

analyzes the sociologist Erwan Lecœur.

This is a real issue for the next presidential election: it is undoubtedly on this electorate that the accession to the second round will be played out for Valérie Pécresse or Éric Zemmour. Especially since he is no longer seduced by the extreme right of Marine Le Pen who would have, according to him, abandoned the Christians for a more popular electorate. 

"

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