Éric Zemmour’s lost bets

Si Éric Zemmour writes the story of his own campaign one day, he will be bothered to give it a title: he has already used The French Suicide. The polemicist’s fascination with self-destruction, which has haunted his books and chronicles for so many years, was bound to lead him to failure. He will probably live it less well than the seasoned politicians, who have thick leather – “Elections are like sport: you have to love victory but accept defeat”, Sarkozy told me. Out of inexperience as much as out of arrogance, Zemmour convinced himself that, by dint of reading and writing about power and the campaigns, of gaining audiences and selling books, he could become an actor rather than a expert and finally show what he was capable of, like the kids play…