Far-Right Pundit Zemmour Reignites Immigration Debate at Conservative Rally

"In France, as in all of Europe, all our problems are exacerbated by immigration: school, housing, unemployment, social deficits, public order, prisons [...] and all our problems exacerbated by immigration are exacerbated by Islam. It’s a double whammy."

This is how the polemicist Zemmour expressed himself at the start of a meeting organized in Paris by the entourage of the former far-right deputy, Marion Maréchal.

Similarly, he railed against "commercial universalism" and "Islamic universalism" which "crush nations [...] ways of life, cultures".

For the one who was recently convicted of incitement to religious hatred, there is no doubt that the French state has become "the weapon for the destruction of the nation and the enslavement of its people, the replacement of its people by another people, another civilization".

Zemmour’s position is not to the taste of all the French. "Going backwards does not make a future. [...] All this only gathers the fearful," retorted the essayist Raphaël Enthoven, the only dissenting voice to speak at the same meeting.

In the wake of this, Eric Bothorel, a deputy of La République en Marche (LREM), wrote on his Twitter account: "Is it me or do I think it’s dangerous? History does not repeat itself, it stutters. The impression of being in 1934. Zemmour, the hiccup of the dark hours."