New figures suggest hardliner Eric Zemmour would qualify for the second round in the election runoff next spring
Far-Right TV host overtakes Le Pen in polls and could face Macron in presidential race
A far-Right French TV pundit who says immigrants should be forced to have French names has overtaken Marine Le Pen for the first time in the presidential race, according to a new poll which suggest he would face Emmanuel Macron in a runoff of for the Elysee in April next year.
Eric Zemmour, 63, who holds convictions for inciting hatred, is threatening to upset the already unpredictable French political landscape with his diatribes against what he dubs the “great replacement” of white French by Muslims and the loss of French identity and traditional values, along with warnings of impending civil war.
He has siphoned off supporters of Ms Le Pen, who faced Macron in a run-off in 2017, and lies to the Right of her on the political spectrum, suggesting that French children born to immigrants should be forced to have French Christian names.
A Paris Match magazine cover shot of Mr Zemmour, who is married with three children, in an intimate embrace with a 28-year-old aide has only added to the media buzz around his potential presidential candidacy.
In response to the Paris Match story, Mr Zemmour tweeted: “It seems that I am beginning to cause enough worry for Paris Match, the poodle of the governing powers, to try to damage me. I will not be intimidated.”
The Harris Interactive poll published on Wednesday showed Mr Zemmour winning 17 per cent (up 4 points on a late September poll) of voter support, beating Ms Le Pen on 15 per cent and any one of the three challengers vying for the centre-right ticket.
Mr Macron would then beat Mr Zemmour by 55 per cent to 45 per cent the second round, the poll showed.
The centrist French president beat Ms Le Pen by a far higher margin – 66 per cent to 34 per cent – in he run-off in 2017.
However, if Ms Le Pen reached the runoff this time, the poll showed her losing by an even smaller margin that Mr Zemmour with 47 per cent of the vote.
“A candidate has never been known to experience such a change in voter intentions in so short a space of time as we’ve seen with Eric Zemmour,” pollster Antoine Gautier from Harris Interactive commented on the results of the survey.
He was seen as winning only 7 per cent when the group tested his popularity with voters for the first time on September 8.
Mr Zemmour, who has repeatedly declared a Le Pen victory impossible, has not formally thrown his hat in the ring but recently left his prime-time chat-show spot to comply with electoral rules and published a book “France Has Not Yet Said Its Final Word”.
On Monday, he took part in a sold-out debate before 3,700 people in a Parisian congress hall with a nationalist philosopher Michel Onfray frequently interspersed with cries of “Zemmour president!”.
He has drawn parallels between himself and Donald Trump but unlike the US ex-president he peppers his tirades with literary and historic quotations.
The poll showed Mr Macron beating all main challengers in the second round, including Xavier Bertrand. Bertrand is running against Valerie Pécresse, head of the Ile de France region, and former European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier for the mainstream Right-wing ticket.
President Macron, 43, is said to be unsure whether to take him on or ignore the cumbersome maverick for fear of losing his lofty presidential status.
He appeared to refer to him last week when he denounced suggestions that national identity could boil down to choosing French-sounding first names for one’s children.