“Zemmour weakens French interests in the Muslim world”

By France’s competitors in the Gulf too

In the Gulf for example, the only notoriety of Eric Zemmour – already as a candidate – will easily serve as an alibi for calls to boycott France, which the same French challengers already support with joy. Indeed, the speech of the polemicist of CNews never hesitates to attack Islam, a religion shared by more than a billion people in the world, and that the latter wants to “fight”. However, the controversies over the cartoons of the Prophet of Islam have shown a growing disenchantment between France and the Arab world, forcing France’s close allies to disassociate themselves and publicly condemn Paris during the last sequence of the cartoons.

The media hostile to France in heaven

The Arabic-speaking media will naturally be the first to take advantage of the opportunity offered by Eric Zemmour in his inflammatory statements. And the hashtags calling for a boycott of French products – which continue to flourish from time to time (1) on Twitter – will start again. Moreover, the Turkish press agency in Arabic never misses an opportunity to comment on issues related to Islamophobia in France by making the link with the notoriety of Eric Zemmour. Other Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan will be on the list of countries likely to be bristling with Islamophobic speeches. Arab countries, with a claimed Islamic identity and with a significant financial windfall, such as Kuwait and Qatar, will also have to show their distance from France if Eric Zemmour’s speech wins more and more coverage in the foreign press, especially Arabic-speaking. In 2020, Kuwaiti businesses had been particularly active in boycotting French products.

French alliances weakened

The activism of the countries most quick to condemn Eric Zemmour’s Islamophobic remarks will lead France’s closest allies to dissociate themselves and distance themselves, because the regional context in which a struggle for the leadership of Islam is being played out will relegate international considerations in the background.

Thus, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab and Muslim countries will be forced to align themselves with the first and to condemn as in the case of the cartoons. Al Azhar will probably try to be the most responsive and not be overtaken by Turkey or Iran. Some leaders in difficulty will be able to gather, to their benefit and at little cost, their public opinion around them thanks to a condemnation that the local newspapers will display in the streets.

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A real risk of the provincialization of France …

“Provincialize Europe”, headlines Dipesh Chakrabarty in his essay, which has also become the motto of the decolonial movement, a political objective shared by the postcolonial movement as well. The members of this last movement want to “go beyond European-centrism” by questioning the (supposed) universality of concepts inherited – by force – from European modernity. They will be surprised to find an unexpected ally in the person of Eric Zemmour. The latter never misses an opportunity to shoot red balls on the values ​​inherited from the Enlightenment: progress, equality and human rights.

Thus, Zemmour becomes the perfect alibi for critics of France’s cultural heritage around the world since he criminalizes it himself. The most glaring example remains his degrading and insulting speech towards women, because in addition to going against one of the foundations of current French feminist diplomacy, the latter publicly breaks with the image of a France which honors equality and courtesy towards women. It is not surprising, moreover, that the polls give her low scores among the female electorate.

… or even a clear break against it

Paradoxically, Zemmour and the new intelligentsia influenced by American universities will achieve the same result through different logics: cut France off from the rest of the world and let Anglo-Saxons, Russians, Turks, Iranians and other nationals of regional powers replace French influence. where it will have been damaged. The two have embarked on a lucrative business: the entrepreneurship of anger and resentment, forgetting that all are passengers of the boat that flies the French flag. If ever, unfortunately, this one should sink, they will all drown. Together.

The case of Eric Zemmour is part of a national tension around Islam which continues to swell, year after year, favored by all extremisms, including jihadist terrorism which has plagued France in recent decades. However, openly Islamophobic speeches – which have become commonplace in television channels and the presence of Renaud Camus on CNews is just one umpteenth and sad example – weaken the French social fabric as well as the influence of France in the world.

The continuum created between domestic and foreign policy around the Muslim question – sometimes in the name of the fight against Islamism, whose multiple names illustrate the absence of precise outlines and therefore of precise definition – adds confusion in the treatment of the facts. religious, and in fine, their distinction from the political fact. Zemmour takes advantage of this confusion – religious illiteracy would say the Pope – to sell his books, feed his ego and his resentment towards Muslims, but it is the fate of France that he dishonors.