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Thousands attend Paris rally for far-right presidential candidate Zemmour

Thousands of supporters of French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour gathered at a stadium outside Paris on Sunday to kick off his first official campaign rally, with police on high alert over the risk of clashes with protesters.

Thousands attend Paris rally for far-right presidential candidate Zemmour
Supporters at the demo gather at an exhibition space in the Villepinte suburb of Paris to support Eric Zemmour's candidacy. Photo: Julien De Rosa/AFP

Zemmour, a 63-year-old author and television pundit, announced Tuesday that he would run in next April’s election, joining the field of challengers seeking to unseat centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

Waving French flags and chanting “Zezu President!” or singing the Marseillaise national anthem, fans waited amid flyers proclaiming an anti-immigrant candidacy “so that France remains French.” The rally is also a chance for Zemmour to regain momentum after stumbling in opinion polls following his dramatic entrance into French politics in September.

“We’re hoping that by announcing his candidacy and with this meeting that it will relaunch him a bit,” said Maxence Mike, 22, student from the Paris suburb of Montargis and member of the “Generation Z” association.

“There’s a malaise in France, a crisis of civilisations and security problems, and for now he’s the only one with the courage to pose these problems clearly,” said Jacques Ohana, a 65-year-old Paris surgeon, who noted that, like Zemmour, he had north African origins.

Around 19,000 people have signed up for the event, according to Zemmour’s campaign, leading him to swap a concert hall for a larger capacity exhibition space in the Villepinte suburb northeast of the capital.

Photo: Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP

Police are on alert for far-left activists and anarchists who disrupted Zemmour’s trip last weekend to the southern of port city of Marseille, which ended with the candidate showing the middle finger to a woman who was protesting. Riot police massed outside the arena and searched people’s bags as they arrived.

In Paris, a few hundred people marched to protest a candidacy denounced as racist and divisive.

“It’s important to show that we won’t let fascism gain ground,” Simon Duteil, a spokesperson for the Solidaires union, told AFP.

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Momentum fades

Until now, Zemmour had been travelling the country doing promotional events for his latest book — “France has not said its final word” — which served as a thinly disguised pre-campaign tour.

As well as a series of recent missteps, including the middle-finger incident, Zemmour has seen several influential figures on the far-right distance themselves from him, including his main financial backer. Polls show that voters currently believe Marine Le Pen, the veteran leader of the far-right National Rally party, would make a more competent president than Zemmour, who is viewed as highly divisive and arrogant by a large majority.

The latest surveys suggest he would be eliminated in the first round if the election were held now, with Macron tipped to win ahead of Le Pen, but analysts warn that the outcome remains highly uncertain.

Zemmour launched his bid for the presidency on Tuesday in a highly unusual video posted on YouTube, which saw him read a speech into an old-fashioned microphone while seated at a desk and barely looking into the camera. It was intended to recall the famous June 1940 address by war hero General Charles De Gaulle to carry on with resistance to the Nazi occupation of France.

Over images of riots, Islamic prayers and terror attacks, Zemmour warned that France was in danger of being “conquered” or “colonised” by immigrants and that French people were being “replaced.”

His friend Robert Menard, a far-right mayor of the southern town of Beziers and an influential figure in far-right circles, called the rally on Sunday “an audacious bet. He needs to pull it off.”

Menard described the YouTube video as being of “apocalyptic darkness” and said Zemmour would need to begin outlining concrete proposals.

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PROTESTS

Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

Riot police clashed with demonstrators in the north-western French city of Rennes on Thursday in the latest rally against the rise of the far-right ahead of a national election this month.

Clashes mar rally against far right in north-west France

The rally ended after dozens of young demonstrators threw bottles and other projectiles at police, who responded with tear gas.

The regional prefecture said seven arrests were made among about 80 people who took positions in front of the march through the city centre.

The rally was called by unions opposed to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party (RN), which is tipped to make major gains in France’s looming legislative elections. The first round of voting is on June 30.

“We express our absolute opposition to reactionary, racist and anti-Semitic ideas and to those who carry them. There is historically a blood division between them and us,” Fabrice Le Restif, regional head of the FO union, one of the organisers of the rally, told AFP.

Political tensions have been heightened by the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a Paris suburb, for which two 13-year-old boys have been charged. The RN has been among political parties to condemn the assault.

Several hundred people protested against anti-Semitism and ‘rape culture’ in Paris in the latest reaction.

Dominique Sopo, president of anti-racist group SOS Racisme, said it was “an anti-Semitic crime that chills our blood”.

Hundreds had already protested on Wednesday in Paris and Lyon amid widespread outrage over the assault.

The girl told police three boys aged between 12 and 13 approached her in a park near her home in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie on Saturday, police sources said.

She was dragged into a shed where the suspects beat and raped her, “while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks”, one police source told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country outside Israel and the United States.

At Thursday’s protest, Arie Alimi, a lawyer known for tackling police brutality and vice-president of the French Human Rights League, said voters had to prevent the far-right from seizing power and “installing a racist, anti-Semitic and sexist policy”.

But he also said he was sad to hear, “anti-Semitic remarks from a part of those who say they are on the left”.

President Emmanuel Macron called the elections after the far-right thrashed his centrist alliance in European Union polls. The far-right and left-wing groups have accused each other of being anti-Semitic.

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