France’s future presidential election: Zemmour versus Darmanin?

Marine Le Pen has been unfairly accused of antisemitism. Unlike her father, she is free from that pathological condition. But Le Pen, who once seemed to grasp the nature of the Muslim threat in France, has moved leftward on the subject of Islam, and appears to have concluded – unlike her rival on the right, Eric Zemmour – that there is not much that can be done to lessen that threat. “Le Pen: Jerusalem must be capital of two states,” by Yossi Lempkowicz, JNS, April 14, 2022:

Israeli authorities have so far refused to receive Le Pen because she is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the extreme-right National Front and a convicted Holocaust denier who stated that the Holocaust was a mere “detail” of the Second World War.

Marine Le Pen has made clear that she has broken with her father completely over his antisemitism, and over his offensive remark attempting to diminish the significance of the Holocaust. She even expelled him from her party, the National Rally, which is the successor to the National Front that Jean-Marie Le Pen himself had founded.

Instead of insisting that Marine Le Pen was not welcome in Israel, the Israelis would have done better to have greeted Le Pen to their country with open arms. They could have explained the security problem, should Israel be squeezed within those 1949 armistice lines that Le Pen now favors as what she calls “the 1967 lines.” Had Le Pen seen for herself that narrow waist that “pre-1967” Israel lived with, from Qalqilya to the sea, or visited the Golan Heights, where Syrian artillery used to rain down death on Jewish farmers far below, and where the Syrian army invaded Israel from the north in 1948 and 1967, or had she viewed up close how Israeli control of the Jordan Valley was essential to halt any invaders into Israel from the east, she might have come away with a different understanding of Israel’s security needs.

In a tour of Jerusalem with her Israeli hosts, Le Pen would have visited the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, and learned that the Jordanians had destroyed much of that Quarter (which is why visitors are always startled at how it looks so brand-new — which it is — compared to the Muslim, Christian, and Armenian Quarters), including all 58 of its synagogues, between 1948 and 1967. She would have discovered, on a visit to the Temple Mount, that the Israelis are so solicitous of the Muslims that they allow Jews to visit the holiest site in Judaism only four hours a day, on only five days of the week, and Jewish visitors are strictly prohibited either from saying Jewish prayers, or from silently mouthing them. She might have been taken to the Mount of Olives, the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world, with some tombstones that are 3000 years old, and she could then have seen for herself where tens of thousands of ancient tombstones had been uprooted by the Jordanians and used to line the floors of Jordanian army latrines.

She could have visited the Israeli cities and towns in the West Bank, and been told that it would be impossible for half a million Israelis to be uprooted from their homes, given the national trauma that resulted from the uprooting of a much smaller number of Israelis — 8,500 – who were removed from Gaza in 2005. She could visit the Jewish religious sites, like Joseph’s Tomb and Rachel’s Tomb, that have been repeatedly attacked and damaged by Palestinian mobs. She could see the Jewish archeological sites all over Israel which testify to the 3,000 years of a continuous Jewish presence, and learn from the archeologists how the Palestinians deliberately try to destroy these sites, in an attempt to efface the Jewish connection to the land. Had she done all that, it is possible that Marine Le Pen would have been less ready to repeat the standard support for a “two-state solution,” with Israel and Palestine both having their capitals in Jerusalem, and might have recognized the historic claims of the Jews to all of the Land of Israel, and to Jerusalem as their capital alone. Perhaps there is still time to educate her, in the hope that she will then rethink her current ill-founded beliefs about Israel and the Palestinians.

It is not for her recently announced views on Israel and Jerusalem that the organized community of French Jews has come down hard on Marine Le Pen, urging a massive vote for Emmanuel Macron. That community’s horror at the thought of Marine Le Pen becoming president has nothing to do with her support for “a two-state solution” with Israel squeezed within the 1949 armistice lines (a.k.a. “the 1967 lines”), and Jews and Palestinians both having the capitals of their respective states in Jerusalem. It is simply that she has long been labelled “far-right,” and therefore a supposed threat to French Jews, who overwhelmingly consider themselves to be center-left. But those political figures who are too easily, and often misleadingly, designated as “far-right,” are sometimes the best friends of both the Jews and of Israel. One thinks of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Victor Orban in Hungary, Donald Trump in the U.S., and Eric Zemmour in France.

This reality has escaped CRIF and the grand panjandrums of the French Jewish community. They don’t want to have anything to do with someone who has been labelled “right-wing” no matter how favorable that person might be to Israel and to Jews.

Both main Jewish organizations in France, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the Central Jewish Consistory, have called[on Jews] to “barrage” Le Pen and vote ”massively” for Macron on April 24.

The CRIF calls for a Republican Union to prevent the extreme right from coming to power,” it said in a statement.

Elie Korchia, president of the Central Consistory, which represents the Jewish faith, and France’s Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia, warned of “a new danger for the cohesion of the French population,” and called “to overcome political divisions and vote for Emmanuel Macron” to “ensure the preservation of Republican principles as well as humanist values advocated by Judaism.”

These Jewish organizations in France are opposing Le Pen for all the wrong reasons. They have bought into the idea that she is “far-right,” an epithet affixed to any European politician who has ever dared to warn about the dangers of Muslim immigration. Nothing else in her program is noticeably different from the center-right candidates. Once she has been labelled as “far-right,” of course, all consideration of her views simply stops; she has been placed politically beyond the pale.

Why not, instead, oppose Le Pen for the right reasons: that her Middle East peace policy, as just announced, would trample on Jewish history and Jewish rights, and were it to be carried out, would put Israel in a most vulnerable position, no different from what Mahmoud Abbas has been demanding – an Israel within the 1949 armistice lines, and a dimidiated Jerusalem serving as the capital of both Israel and Palestine.

Zemmour was the great hope of those who share his alarm over what the country’s large and ever-increasing Muslim population means for the future of France. A seasoned journalist and a constant presence on television, he far outshone Le Pen, with whom he was often compared. But his campaign sputtered after he made some absurd comments – particularly infuriating, and inexplicable, given how very intelligent he is — about Vichy having saved French Jews, and about how it was not unreasonable for some in the French army’s high command to suspect Alfred Dreyfus of espionage. And so Zemmour sank from 18% in the polls to 7% in the first round of this year’s presidential election.

On April 24, Emanuel Macron will undoubtedly defeat Marine Le Pen for the second time. It will be close, with Macron getting between 51% and 55% of the vote. This second defeat is likely to cause Marine Le Pen to withdraw from national politics, to make way for others who may be more successful. Her articulate and very attractive niece, Maréchal Le Pen, who is an ally of Eric Zemmour, and shares his views of the Islamic threat, is likely to help Zemmour “inherit” Marine Le Pen’s supporters, even as she positions herself to someday be Zemmour’s successor in the Reconquête (Reconquista) Party he founded. Macron is limited to two terms; five years from now, someone else will inherit his voters. I suspect that will be his current Interior Minister, Gerard Darmanin, whose no-nonsense hard-line stance on Islam has increased his popularity, and has also helped to harden the views on Islam of Macron himself.

In a debate last fall between Gerard Darmanin and Marine Le Pen, which received no coverage outside France, Gerard Darmanin accused Le Pen of “going soft on Islam,” to which she replied “I can confirm that I do not intend to attack Islam, which is a religion like any other.” No, it isn’t. Gerard Darmanin knows it isn’t. Eric Zemmour knows it, Maréchal Le Pen knows it, and so does Emmanuel Macron. Macron has come a long way since he was elected in 2017. He insisted last fall that Muslim leaders must accept his ultimatum that they sign a “charter of republican values.” The charter states that Islam is a religion, not a political movement. The charter also prohibits foreign interference, including funding from abroad for Muslim groups in France. These are the two bedrock principles Macron wants to compel French Muslims to accept: first, the rejection of political Islam; second, the rejection of foreign interference in “French Islam.” Home schooling will be restricted, to avoid having pupils attend Muslim schools. Aside from what is being required of Muslim leaders, Macron’s party last year passed legislation to increase government oversight of mosques, schools, and sports clubs to “safeguard France from radicalization and to promote respect for French values.” This has infuriated many Muslims, but their hostile reaction has only convinced Macron that even more oversight is needed.

In February 2022 Macron’s government announced the creation of a new body, the Forum of Islam, which will include Muslim clergy, laymen, and women, all of them handpicked by the government to ensure they are “moderates,” who will be expected to act as the intermediary between the French government and the Muslims of France, helping to prevent the “radicalization” of French Muslims. Many Muslims are enraged at being singled out for this oversight by the government, apparently overlooking the fact that it is Muslims, not Christians or Jews or Hindus, who are responsible for numerous terrorist attacks, and it is only Muslims who have created hundreds of “No-Go Zones” in neighborhoods where they live,, and where non-Muslims, including the representatives of the state – police, firemen – fear to enter, because of the hostile reception they receive from Muslims. Unlike all non-Muslim migrants to France, the Muslims alone refuse to integrate into French society.

Macron’s rightward shift on Islam, urged on him by his Interior Minister, is likely to continue, but at some point, if he is quite sincere with himself, he will have to come to the realization that, as Ibn Warraq famously said, “There are moderate Muslims. Islam itself is not moderate.” No matter how much the French state tries to regulate the Muslim community, to make it accept “French values” and to shield it from the influence of foreign Muslims, Paris cannot change the texts and teachings of Islam. Neither the Qur’an, nor the hadith, can be modified. Macron may nibble at the edges of the problem, but it is Zemmour who goes to the heart of the matter – there are too many Muslims in France to be adequately controlled – by saying he would repatriate at least one million Muslims, including “illegal immigrants, foreign delinquents and criminals, and foreigners on file.” And that is only a first step. This is what Zemmour and others call a policy of “remigration.” At the same time, Zemmour has promised to halt all further Muslim immigration into France.

Furthermore, he would make France distinctly less attractive to Muslim immigrants, almost all of whom are economic migrants, not true asylum seekers, who come to batten on the largesse that the French welfare state lavishes on migrants. The Muslim migrants – more so than any other group — are past masters at taking advantage of every benefit the government provides – free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, and more. Eric Zemmour has suggested denying migrants these benefits until they have lived in the country for several years, and been gainfully employed during that time. That should discourage those who were expecting to live off the French taxpayers as soon as they arrived in France – receiving a kind of proleptic Jizyah, as they believe is their due — and who have shown little interest in working for a living. They’ll go elsewhere, if Zemmour has his way, either to one of the countries that are still much too indulgent when it comes to Muslim migrants, such as Germany and Sweden or, if those countries also become, following France’s example, distinctly less welcoming to Muslim migrants, ideally they may decide to return to their countries of origin.

A prediction: In five years, Macron will be ineligible to run for a third term, and Marine Le Pen, with whom I am so disappointed, having lost two presidential elections, is unlikely to be given the chance to try again. The race may well be between Eric Zemmour and Gerard Darmanin. Zemmour, who only entered politics late in 2021, can spend the next five years working to expand his political base, from his bully pulpit of regular appearances on television, his articles and his best-selling books about what he calls “the suicide of France.” He will inherit almost all of Marine Le Pen’s supporters, whom he can add to his own base. And given that the situation with Muslims in France will only worsen, more of the French will be more willing to listen to, and to support, his plan of “remigration.” 

Gerard Darmanin, the current Interior Minister, has taken a hard line on Islam, pushing Macron to make Muslim leaders pledge to support “republican values” (not Islamic ones), and to refuse any funding from foreign Muslims, such as those deep-pocketed Saudi Salafists. Darmanin wants much greater government oversight of the mosques, schools, and Islamic charities in France. He’s determined to crack down hard on those that oppose ‘republican values” or that accept money from Muslims abroad.. The main difference between Darmanin and Zemmour is that the former has yet to discuss the need to reduce the Muslim population through “remigration.” But his instincts, his determination to deal with this internal threat to the people and civilization of France, suggest he will have little difficulty in embracing “remigration,” beginning with “illegal immigrants, foreign delinquents and criminals, and foreigners on file” but not ending there.

An election in 2027 that pits Eric Zemmour against Gerard Darmanin will make Muslims in France anxious, but for the French, coming to their senses about Islam, such a contest is a prospect that should please.