The outgoing president, whose name was chanted by supporters of the far-right candidate on Sunday at the Trocadero, counterattacked. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he believes that there is “not one to catch up with the other”.
We will remember from history that two words can be much more devastating than long speeches. Since Sunday, Eric Zemmour has drawn the wrath of his opponents. In the middle of a speech that lasted nearly an hour, the far-right candidate listed a list of miscellaneous events that have occurred over the past five years. With, each time, the intention of criticizing the alleged laxity of justice. “What makes me indignant is that we will never console the children of Sarah Halimi or of Mireille Knoll»he launched, not without ulterior motive in the instrumentalization of these “everyday dramas”. In front of him, the crowd massed on the Place du Trocadéro in Paris attributed the responsibility for these crimes to Emmanuel Macron, described as“assassin”. Zemmour, having not reacted at the time, later defended himself by explaining that he had “not heard” screams. He “condemn what the crowd said at that time”specifies his entourage.
The outgoing president was visiting Dijon on Monday, meeting associations and residents. From the morning, he was overtaken by the controversy over the Zemmour meeting the day before. “There are two hypotheses. The first is indignity, it is the one that seems to me the most credible, but it is not a surprise”, he blurted out, before continuing: “The second is the ignorance of a very important reform of the five-year term, 100% health. Now, hearing aids, glasses and dentures are reimbursed by Social Security.” Yes “10 million French men and women have had access to it”Macron “invites the deaf candidate to equip himself at a lower cost”.
Mélenchon has been deaf since birth
The tackle is scathing. But not to everyone’s taste. Jean-Luc Mélenchon thus came to put his grain of salt. For the LFI candidate, when “Macron calls Zemmour a hearing-impaired candidate”there is none “definitely not one to catch up with the other”. “Insulting from a disability, are we still there in 2022?” he asks. A few years ago, the deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône had revealed to suffer from a form of deafness since birth. “You see people coming and you hear them. Me no. I discover them when they are on me,” he said in particular in 2015. More recently, on the set of a program by Cyril Hanouna, Eric Zemmour had criticized Jean-Luc Mélenchon for not hearing one of his remarks. “I was deaf from birth. You have something against the handicapped I noticed”had replied the rebellious candidate.
Find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, Google Podcasts, CastBox Where Podcast Addict and subscribe to never miss an episode.
Return to the Trocadero. It’s hard to believe that the far-right candidate didn’t hear anything, as he paused for a few seconds before speaking again. “When you speak in a meeting, you hear the crowd very well”, confirms Yannick Jadot, who was speaking at the Zenith in Paris at the same time. The environmental candidate denounces a “unworthy message”. His communist counterpart Fabien Roussel judges for his part that “all this violence and harsh words” are “extremely shocking”. Sunday afternoon, Valérie Pécresse was the first to take her phone to react on Twitter: “Letting an adversary be treated as a murderer is dangerous for the Republic. That’s definitely not the right.” And for good reason, the candidate LR found there an angle of attack against the candidate with whom she scraps for a plausible fourth place, according to the voting intentions.
Invited on BFM TV on Sunday evening, the leader of LREM deputies, Christophe Castaner, had assured “don’t be surprised” by the incident, judging that Zemmour’s attitude made him “unworthy of a function of political leader”. As for Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, he judged on Monday that it was not necessary “Never let this type of absolutely unbearable remarks pass”. Marine Le Pen also rushed into the breach, denouncing a slogan “regrettable” and considering that“a form of excess responds to a form of excess”.