They didn’t believe it. On the night of Wednesday February 23 to Thursday February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military offensive in Ukraine. Invited on February 9 on Europe 1, Marine Le Pen however brushed aside this hypothesis. “I don’t think Russia wants to invade Ukraine,” she said then. On December 9, in the program “Elysée 2022”, broadcast on France 2, Eric Zemmour made the same speech: “The problem of Ukraine is not that Russia is threatening invasion, I do not believe it Russia, I’m betting, won’t invade Ukraine,” he said. But this Thursday, both are snorted. Everyone, first, hastened to condemn the action of the Russian president by publishing a press release.
“The choice of the military intervention of this night is unjustifiable”, assures Eric Zemmour. “This military operation must be condemned,” adds Marine Le Pen. A position that contrasts with years of conciliatory speeches towards the Russian president, during which Eric Zemmour notably declared on several occasions that he was an “admirable Russian patriot”, who was leading a “great foreign policy”.
As video clips of his “bet” and past pro-Putin statements begin to emerge on social media, the nationalist candidate has called a press conference to affirm his stance on the Ukrainian issue – Marine Le Pen, as to she must speak in duplex on the television news of France 2, at 8:50 p.m. If Eric Zemmour condemns “the use of force”, he nevertheless calls for “understanding Russian claims against the expansion of NATO.” He calls for the negotiation of a treaty during a “peace conference” in Paris and asks Emmanuel Macron to go there, in order to “call for a ceasefire”.
Campaign trips maintained
No strained microphone, no questions, however, were given to journalists after his speech. “It is a question of carrying the voice of Eric Zemmour, a different voice which must be heard, but there is no question of preventing the head of state from playing his role or from parasitizing him”, justifies the candidate’s campaign manager, General Bertrand de La Chesnais.
Asked about the position of the former journalist vis-à-vis the Russian president, or his certainties concerning the “non-invasion” of Ukraine by the latter, the members of the campaign team sweep. “Eric Zemmour did not have all the information that Emmanuel Macron had on the situation on the spot, he delivered his analysis with the elements they had, this controversy is ridiculous”, assure some; “He considers Vladimir Putin to be a strategist, he said so, he did not see what interest he would have in invading Russia, he discovered this event with total incomprehension”, add the others.
However, and while some recommend putting the presidential campaign on hold, the Zemmour camp is not considering it. The trip this weekend, in Savoie and Haute-Savoie, is well and truly maintained. The theme will however be adapted to the situation and the nationalist candidate intends to take advantage of the situation to affirm his vision of international politics, which he calls the “third way”. “We will not move from this line, assures General Bertrand de La Chesnais. We want to bring out a path that is not that of Russia, nor that of NATO.”
Like Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour proposes in his program to leave the integrated military command of NATO, an organization he describes as a “machine for enslaving Western countries.” “It is also a question of recalling that the current situation could have been avoided by ceasing the expansion of NATO to the east of the continent and the non-application of the Minsk agreements”, assures an adviser.
But at Les Républicains, in particular, we point the finger at the candidate’s ambivalence on the subject, accusing him of taking up the language of the Kremlin. Same story on the majority side, where the candidate’s remarks about Vladimir Putin exasperate. On both sides, we assure him: the position of the “third way” is not tenable and Eric Zemmour, in the midst of a conflict, is walking on a tightrope. “If Emmanuel Macron is, according to his formula, the ‘little telegrapher of NATO’, then he is nothing other than the little telegrapher of the Kremlin”, assures an adviser.