PARIS, March 27 (Reuters) – Two weeks before the first round of the presidential election in France, Eric Zemmour made a show of force on Sunday at the Place du Trocadro in Paris, where the former journalist launched an appeal to the heavyweights of the right .
Tens of thousands of people – 100,000 according to Eric Zemmour – came to acclaim the founder of the Reconquest movement, whose momentum is marking time in the polls, where he is credited with about 10% of voting intentions.
“I am the only right-wing candidate in this election,” said Eric Zemmour, who called for “support from patriots”.
He had the deputy Les Républicains (LR) Eric Ciotti applauded and invited several prominent conservatives to join him: former ministers Laurent Wauquiez and Nadine Morano, the European deputy LR Franois-Xavier Bellamy and the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella.
In his eyes, the candidate Les Rpublicains Valrie Pcresse “is a centrist already ready to vote for Emmanuel Macron”.
The candidate of the National Rally Marine Le Pen is according to him “a socialist in the economy who no longer wants to take any risk of displeasing the media on sovereign subjects”.
As for outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, who was an adviser to the Elyse then minister before being elected head of state, “he spent ten years in power since François Hollande and he still does not know whose side he is on. “, quipped Eric Zemmour.
In front of the Eiffel Tower, facing a crowd waving French flags, the one whose campaign slogan is “So that France remains France” said he had “concern for the end of the month and concern for the end of France. “
“Macron assassin,” chanted part of the crowd as Eric Zemmour listed a series of miscellaneous facts.
This slogan subsequently caused a reaction from part of the political class.
“I am strongly fighting the outgoing president but letting an opponent be treated as a murderer is dangerous for the Republic. It is certainly not on the right! It is not on my France”, Valrie Pcresse declared on Twitter .
The president of the group La Rpublique En Marche at the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, for his part, considered “unworthy and intolerable” that Eric Zemmour had allowed insults to be chanted, estimating on Twitter that the Republican right would never have accepted this.
Eric Zemmour, who based his campaign on the themes of security and an immigration he considers uncontrolled, spent part of his speech talking about “assimilation” and quoted many French authors, from Victor Hugo Charles Aznavour .
In the latest polls, Marine Le Pen, already a finalist in 2017, seems able to reach the second round alongside President Emmanuel Macron, given favorite despite a decline since the presentation of his program. (Report Elizabeth Pineau and Claude Chendjou)