FRANCE: Eric Zemmour Holds His First Presidential Rally

Eric Zemmour's Presidential Candidacy Speech (English Edition)

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/12/eric-zemmour-holds-his-first-presidential-rally;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

On Sunday, December 5, Eric Zemmour, the writer, journalist, and television pundit who recently declared his candidacy for President of France, held a rally at Villepinte, in Seine Saint-Denis, for his supporters. He had just announced the formation of a new political party that he has calls “La reconquête,” an allusion to the Reconquista of Spain by Christians, who over many centuries managed to take back their land from the Muslims who had conquered it long before. About 10,000 people showed up to listen to their candidate. And there were others who showed up as well, but not to listen. They came instead determined to spoil the occasion, to prevent Zemmour from speaking or, if they could not prevent him outright, then they would create such a racket, including fighting with his supporters, that it would be impossible to hear him over the din they were determined to create. These far-left hooligans and bully-boys call themselves “antifas,” short for “anti-fascists,” and “peaceful protesters,” but in their storm-trooping attempts to silence everyone they don’t like, they show themselves to be as fascistic as they come, worthy heirs of Hitler’s Brownshirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Chief among these “antifas” at the rally were members of the group SOS-Racisme, a so-called “anti-racist” group that likes to show up and disrupt the speeches of anyone they don’t like. These days, for SOS-Racism, a “racist” means anyone who expresses the slightest misgivings about the large presence of Muslims in France. It doesn’t matter that Muslims are not a race. Dare to question their sheer wonderfulness, and you are labeled a “racist,” permanently consigned to the Outer Darkness. The eloquent Zemmour, of course, drives them half-crazy with hate.

The security men at the Zemmour rally had to confiscate from 39 people, many of whom were members of SOS-Racisme, certain piquant items that have little to do with “peaceful protests.” Among those items that these “antifas” were attempting to bring into the hall were Molotov cocktails, bottles of acid, paving stones, rocks, knives, and at least one grenade. Strangely, very few French newspapers or other media mentioned this confiscation of potentially deadly weapons. Had those weapons been seized from Zemmour’s supporters, instead of from his enemies, it would have been all over the news.

As Zemmour walked through the crowd toward the platform in front, a man — reporters said he was an Arab — reached out, grabbed Zemmour, and put him in a headlock. In freeing himself, Zemmour injured his wrist. Doctors told him he should rest for nine days.

When Zemmour began to speak, the “antifas,” many of them members of SOS-Racisme, started to yell and scream to keep him from being heard. Some stood on their chairs. A dozen militants opened their shirts, revealing t-shirts that spelled out an anti-Zemmour message. Zemmour persevered. At some point, when La Marseillaise was being sung, a group of Muslims began to shout “Allahu akbar.” It brought to mind, naturally, that famous scene in Casablanca, where the French and the desperate refugees in Rick’s Café sing the Marseillaise so passionately and loudly as to drown out the German soldiers who, led by Major Strasser, had been singing “The Watch on the Rhine.” At Zemmour’s rally, those who sang La Marseillaise drowned out that handful of Allahu-akbaring Muslims. Too bad that scene wasn’t caught on camera.

Soon enough, real fights broke out between Zemmour’s supporters and those who were doing what they had come to do – yelling and chanting in order to drown out the candidate. Insults, then fistfights, and eventually, chairs started to be thrown in all directions. It’s unclear who started throwing the chairs, but I suspect it was the “antifas,” because left-wing sites reported only that “chairs flew through the air”; had it been Zemmour’s supporters who started the chair-throwing, such sites would certainly have wanted it known. One girl, with blood streaming dramatically from a minor head wound down her left cheek, refused to have a bandage put on, saying “Ne me soignez pas la tête, il faut que ça fasse des images,” which in rough translation means “No need for first aid to my head, we need to get some photos.” Zemmour’s opponents were doing whatever they could to make him and his supporters look bad.

Another telling episode unfolded when a girl, described as a “militant” of SOS-Racisme, was asked by a reporter: “What do you think of this flier sent out yesterday from SOS-Racisme, that says ‘Paris fera taire Eric Zemmour’ (‘Paris will make Eric Zemmour shut up’)? Isn’t that against the ‘freedom of speech’ that you claim you want to defend?” The girl, nonplussed, with a look of confusion, kept repeating under her breath only “I don’t know. I’m not informed. It’s not my job to talk about that.” (In French: “Mais interrogée par le duo Marschall / Truchot sur une affiche de SOS Racisme demandant hier de ‘faire taire Eric Zemmour,’ la jeune est restée sans voix répétant en bouche ‘je ne sais pas’, ‘je ne suis pas au courant,’ ‘ce n’est pas à moi de dire ça.'”)

About that damage to his wrist, and the nine days of doctor-recommended rest: assuming he takes that advice, he’ll be able to tape campaign speeches to his heart’s content, far from SOS-Racisme’s ignoble strife, with those screaming recruits from SOS-Racisme, those fistfights, those flying chairs, and that winsome face deliberately kept smeared with blood for the photographers.