In the aftermath of the controversy over the education of disabled children triggered by Éric Zemmour, Gilbert Montagné spoke on BFMTV.
“You have to turn your tongue seven times in your mouth before you speak”, goes the saying, and yet… A few weeks before the presidential elections, Éric Zemmour is at the heart of a new controversy, following his remarks on children with disabilities. Indeed, during a discussion with teachers, Friday January 14 in Honnecourt-sur-Escaut (North), the far-right candidate was opposed “the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools“, as reported Free lunch. A speech that outraged Gilbert Montagné, who spoke on BFM TV, Sunday, January 16.
Suffering from blindness since childhood, Gilbert Montagné protested the words of Éric Zemmour live from the continuous news channel. “Stupidity is to think that these people should be put in places where they are among themselves, so it doesn’t bother anyone. As if we were disturbing“, says the interpreter of I have the blues for you before continuing: “Obviously not. It is obvious that in certain situations children may prefer to be in specialized establishments, but that must only represent a minority. We must be by your side and vice versa.” Shocked by the terms used by the candidate, the artist revolted: “It’s completely insane in the sense that we are part of the same world.”
For Gilbert Montagné, “specialized establishments should only represent (a solution) for a minority” of disabled children pic.twitter.com/CfCRHe609C
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) January 15, 2022
Gilbert Montagné talks about his suffering linked to exclusion
With his comments Éric Zemmour angered Gilbert Montagné, who suffered exclusion because of his disability. “When I was little, I didn’t suffer from my visual impairment. I suffered from the fact that they did not take me to the kindergarten next door. I suffered from doing three quarters of an hour on the metro in the morning and in the evening to go to the only kindergarten in Paris that was willing to welcome children like me, children with visual impairments”, then confides the 70-year-old singer.
The political class rebels at the words of Éric Zemmour
Like Gilbert Montagné, many politicians rose up in front of the remarks of the presidential candidate, who is struggling to collect the necessary number of signatures. If it is in front of his relatives that Emmanuel Macron underlined the failure of Éric Zemmour, as reported France Info: “We cannot claim to be in love with France and deny to this extent what we are (…) France is a united, humanist nation, which neither divides nor stigmatises. A nation which, beyond political sensitivities, has always known how to make differences an asset and a strength”, the rest of the political class, his adversaries more particularly, was outraged on Twitter. From Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Valérie Pécresse, via Marine Le Pen, or even Yannick Jadot.
In the aftermath, Éric Zemmour posted a video on his YouTube account explaining that his “words have been hijacked”. “Some politicians went so far as to make it seem like I wanted to exclude children with disabilities from regular school, what a lie and what hypocrisy”, he says in front of the camera.
Photo credits: Agency/ Panoramic / Bestimage