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A few days after he was fined €10,000 for anti-immigrant and Islamophobic remarks, Eric Zemmour, the far-right pundit running for president in France, has again targeted Muslims and vowed to make them more respectful of the French republic and France’s Judeo-Christian values.
In an interview with Israeli daily Maariv, the french pundit said he “will make sure that Muslims respect France.”
While “Muslim countries are free to establish Islam as a state religion,” argued the far-right journalist turned politician, France would not tolerate Muslims coming to France preach and give lessons about integrating or accepting Islam as French religion.
He argued that he does not intend to change Islam, but that he is mainly concerned with “protecting the French people, their identity, their language, their history, their tradition and their customs.”
Styling himself as the president France needs to oversee and protect its identity, Zemmour appeared to wonder why “only the French elites wonder if this [protecting French identity and values from Islam] is legitimate.”
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The pundit reiterated his opposition to the display of any religious symbols in French streets, referencing yarmulkes and explaining that Muslim symbols are not his only targets.
Although anti-Islam propaganda has been a staple in Zemmour’s campaign for president, the bulk of his statements to Maariv suggests the far-right political commentator is implicitly softening his traditionally harsh comments on immigrants and Muslims since a court fined him last week for racist and Islamophobic comments he made in September 2020.
In his September 2020 comments on French television channel CNews, where he worked as a political pundit, Zemmour attacked unaccompanied migrant minors, labeling them “thieves,” “murderers,” and “rapists.”
He also made the controversial case that immigrants and Islam are stripping France of its identity and desecrating its values, promising that if elected he would ban the non-french names like Muhammad.
