Today at 15:00 Paris time (here’s a time conversation chart). Join us on Twitter Space to discuss the French election with Jérôme Clavel, Arun Kapil, Monique Camarra, Tim Smyth, and moi.
A quick background reading list, in French and English:
If you haven’t read it already, we commend to your attention Arun’s outstanding article about Eric Zemmour. It’s first-rate stuff.
In the introduction to Un quinquennat pour rien, Zemmour claims that France’s ‘civilisational war’ with Islam can only be won through a protracted ‘cultural revolution’, via a modern-day ‘Kulturkampf’. A ‘state of cultural emergency’ must be decreed, which would ‘render inoperative all jurisprudence enacted in the name of human rights, to stop the invasion and colonisation of our land, if there is still time’; the rule of law would be suspended ‘to protect the nation in peril’. Zemmour has, in true Bonapartist style, promised a referendum immediately after his election to rubberstamp his ability to stop the courts blocking his measures—in effect, to allow him to rule as a dictator.
Very worth reading in full. As a companion, read David Berlinski—my father—on Zemmour, in FRENCH TOAST.
Présidentielle : Emmanuel Macron à 30,5% des intentions de vote, Marine Le Pen consolide, Valérie Pécresse décroche. 30.5% intend to vote for Macron; Marine Le Pen consolidates her position; Valérie Pécresse drops.
Presidential 2022: who are the candidates in the race?
Five key moments from the annoying debate between Pécresse and Zemmour. (Annoying is my addition. The original says, “muscular.”)
One month out, Macron's re-election looks his to lose
Spirited, disruptive, impotent? Five years of Macron on the international stage
“Zemmour is the spirit of Munich, the spirit of defeat. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re under Vladimir Putin’s influence. That’s why Zemmour is discredited to preside over France.”
“War reveals valor and character. The Gaullist spirit is to defend liberty, democracy, place strong sanctions against the aggressor and accept the consequences … and to show humanity to all the victims and refugees … not the Munich spirit, the defeatist, Vichy spirit, the ‘38 spirit, saying Ukraine doesn’t exist, the fascination with force—that’s you, that’s what you say—you’ve shown your inhumanity in saying you’d accept no refugees on French soil. You discredit France.
“Monsieur Zemmour says I have a ‘false firmness’ about immigration. You, sir, want immigration to zero, is that correct? That means no more researchers in our laboratories, no one to pick the crops—stop interrupting me, excuse me, I too have the right to speak. Women have the right to speak.”
And today in the magazine, Joshua Treviño examines the sources of Russian conduct and asks whether there was a meaningful opportunity for a compromise peace in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine. He does not think so. Read: THE NARRATIVE OF DESTRUCTION.
… When we think back to whether or not the war could have been averted, we must understand that this was almost certainly the same framework in which the Russian leadership was operating—and the same conclusions it was drawing. Vladimir Putin receives accolades from his admirers, at home and abroad, for his strategic acumen, but the truth is he is a poor strategist. His strengths are somewhat in the operational spheres, and especially in the tactical arena: think of Lavrov baiting Truss into refusing British recognition of Russian sovereignty over (real) Russian territory, and you have a characteristic Putin move. When the 2014 events unfolded, he conceived the Crimean and Donbas seizures as punishment operations, without dreaming that they would have follow-on effects undoing the mechanisms of Ukrainian civil society that had hitherto served Russian interests well. …