Studio DN: Could Eric Zemmour become Donald Trump in France?

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French President Emmanuel Macron was a rocket when he came to power in France in 2017. He then beat Marine Le Pen, the party leader in the National Assembly. What has happened to the right since then?

– Marine Le Pen continued to work to try to get closer to the presidency. She led a process of normalization of her party, you can call it. They tried to do away with the most extreme expressions, outright racism and anti-Semitism that existed during her father’s time as party leader, and gradually moved towards trying to become a more respectable party that could attract traditional right-wing voters. It reminds us of the process Swedish Democrats went through in Sweden.

How did you start talking about Eric Zemmour’s political ambitions?

– Although he had a prominent role in the debate, he did not make a real impact in public opinion until the fall of 2019. Then he received an hour-long program on good air on Cnews TV, a kind of French equivalent of American Fox News. It is a news channel with an editorial streak that systematically highlights opinions to the far right, and uses what media researchers usually call “framing”, i.e. issues or interpretive models that align with a right-wing ideological viewpoint when presenting reality. This has contributed to Eric Zemmour gradually becoming a household name among many who watch this channel – especially conservative and far-right voters. They saw an eloquent person with opinions that agreed with theirs

– At the beginning of the year, there was increasing criticism of Marine Le Pen, who some voters in the National Assembly do not consider their best representative. She made a questionable effort in the debate against Macron in 2017, and when things went badly for her party in this summer’s regional elections, more and more people started talking about Zemmour as a possible alternative name – but outside the party.

In this section, you will also discover how French politicians treated Eric Zemmour and how Eric Zemmour compares to Donald Trump.

Listen to the episode:

STUDIO DN

Could Eric Zemmour become Donald Trump for France?

Host: Sana Toren Burling
Producer: Sabina Marmolakage

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