While Eric Zemmour is the center of media and political attention, some people laugh at him by comparing him to Gargamel, the villain of the Smurfs. Amusing ? Not really.
Unless you live in a cave, you’ve noticed: Éric Zemmour is on the rise. TV, radio … And when it is not him who has the microphone, others talk about him and his ideas, which have largely infused political speeches on the eve of the 2022 presidential election, with a few exceptions. On social networks, Eric Zemmour is also very popular, his name appearing regularly in trending topic on Twitter. Messages to support him in his project of candidacy, but also, to make fun of him in a more or less happy way.
Of course, we can laugh at Eric Zemmour (after all, having fun at the omnipresence of a defender of Philippe Pétain in political debate is, if not a good idea, at least a right). But Internet users regularly attack his physique, comparing him to Gargamel among others. Even slightly plucked black hair, thin silhouette, piercing gaze … The rapprochement is tempting. Better to avoid it, however, no matter how hostile you are to the polemicist.
Zemmour and the Smurfs, a dangerous valve
In his work The little blue book, critical and political analysis of the Smurfs society (ed. Pocket), the very serious Antoine Buéno, political science researcher, dissects the world of Peyo’s elves. Among the criticisms addressed to the cult work, he underlines that the character of Gargamel comes under the anti-semitic cartoon. On closer inspection, it is difficult not to perceive the similarities between the dreadful sorcerer and these drawings very popular in the 19th and 20th centuries in the West: hooked nose, crooked fingers, thirst for power and obsession for wealth, Gargamel is in no longer always flanked by his cat Azrael, a surname which evokes Hebrew.
Was Peyo a hideous anti-Semite ? Not at all, according to Thierry Culliford, his heir, who says he was not interested in politics and that the name Azrael was invented by comic book writer Ivan Delporte, in tribute to his Jewish wife. The fact remains that if the father of the Smurfs did not seek to harm, his villain is indeed an archetype steeped in problematic stereotypes. You do not share this analysis? Perhaps you will agree that it is not neutral to refer Eric Zemmour, a Jewish man, to physical characteristics whose theorization fueled the Nazi genocidal project. Promised, the will to fight Zemourian ideas (racist fantasy of the “great replacement”, hatred of Muslims, hardcore misogyny…) can take other more relevant forms.