The candidacy of polemicist Éric Zemmour for the presidential election was announced this week on YouTube and then in the 8 p.m. newspaper of TF1. Either way, it’s a controversial intervention.
Would Éric Zemmour be the first YouTuber candidate of the Republic? After Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the video blogger, here is Zemmour the far-right candidate who declares himself on the Google platform, and not on Dailymotion, the sovereign platform controlled by his friend Bolloré. In total, nearly 2.7 million people watched this video in three days, mimicking the appeal of General de Gaulle on June 18 or the speech of a king. The comparison ends there, because this clip also contains a lot of violent images to whet fears – a fight in a hospital for example. Suddenly, YouTube believed it was justified to prohibit minors from accessing the video. Which amounts to regulating the contents of our political life.
The making of this video plays both on nostalgia, with, for example, an extract from the film Joan of Arc by Luc Besson and the rejection of intellectuals. To designate them to the popular vindictiveness, the video of Zemmour exhibits images of personalities: Jacques Attali or Eric Fassin, or an animator like Yann Barthès, of TMC, who was also quick to congratulate himself with a craniality a little silly.
In his video, Éric Zemmour, who was a journalist and who made his fortune thanks to the copyrights on his books, pretends to have forgotten that images like extracts from works have to be paid for. His relatives invoke the right of quotation which applies however badly to a propaganda message. Because before broadcasting images, authorization is required. It is not only for money matters, it is also because of a moral right. Yes or no, do I agree to appear or that my production appears in this clip which aims to set one part of France against the other? For not having respected it, Eric Zemmour has drawn the wrath of many media and personalities including France 24 and AFP who ask for the removal of the images and reserve the right to prosecute him. The fraudulent images have also been removed from media sites like The Parisian.
In front of Gilles Bouleau, the presenter of the 20h of TF1, Zemmour talks about ” legal disputes “. He lets it be known that he will pay. However, that says a lot about the amateurism of his campaign. Likewise, the candidate was offended to be taken to task when the presenter reminds him of his middle finger in Marseille or his misogynistic remarks in his books. He regrets not having been treated with the consideration that a first candidate interview would deserve. But you can’t be the anti-system YouTuber and then complain that the system is rejecting you in your own language.