What Will Journalists Do With France’s Trump?
By over-indexing on coverage of the far-right pundit Éric Zemmour, the media risk amplifying him.
By Yasmeen Serhan - October 27, 2021- The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/10/france-trump-eric-zemmour/620484
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A television star eyes a presidential run as an outsider ready to take on the political establishment. Unlike his competitors, he doesn’t shy away from religious or racial provocation, nor does he hide his penchant for conspiracies. He is a vocal opponent of immigration, political correctness, and feminism. To his supporters, he is a familiar face who isn’t afraid to “tell it like it is.” To detractors, he’s an inflammatory populist set on dividing the country. The media’s wall-to-wall coverage makes him an inescapable presence.
This isn’t Donald Trump, though it might be France’s version of him. Éric Zemmour, a far-right pundit who has gained ground in recent polls ahead of the country’s presidential election next year, has yet to descend from his proverbial golden escalator to announce his candidacy. But the overwhelming coverage of him in the French media, as well as his increasing presence in the international press, suggests that it’s only a matter of time before he does.
That Zemmour has managed to attract outsize attention relative to the rest of France’s presidential hopefuls is a testament to his ability to remain provocative—a skill that he has honed over the course of his career. Like Trump, he has vexed his way onto front pages and prime-time news broadcasts simply by being the most outrageous voice in the room. The goal, it would appear, is to drum up enough momentum to bolster his anticipated candidacy. And so far, the French press has proved happy to oblige.
The media have been here before. Although the American media did not create Trump (like Zemmour, he was a household name long before he was ever a candidate), they did grant him a disproportionate level of coverage, bestowing upon him more attention and legitimacy than they’ve given any of his competitors. With six months left until election day (still a long way away, by French standards), France’s contest has scarcely begun. Yet by over-indexing on a single candidate—or, in Zemmour’s case, a potential candidate—French journalists look doomed to repeat the mistakes of their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic. (...)