It was a generation ago – when I was in high school – that Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister. The media and popular culture were less tribalized then than they are today – but the drumbeat from the cultural authorities was this is a very bad thing.
And it foreshadowed the great American resurgence that followed; a wave of center-right leaders followed – Kohl in Germany, Mitterand in France, Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, and of course Ronald Reagan – who altered the course of, and in many ways saved (or postponed the demise, at least) of Western Civilization.
Is Eric Zemmour cut from the same cloth?
I don’t know, and he’s only a candidate at the moment.
But if he turns into the man of the moment in France, perhaps there’s still hope for the West.
Here’s his speech announcing his candidacy. Translation here.
It’s an incredible work of political rhetoric and, if not oratory, certainly videography.
Steven Hayward:
Today Zemmour released a video declaring his candidacy for president, and I’ve heard comparisons (including from a French student in my political science class this semester) comparing it to Charles de Gaulle’s famous July 18, 1940 radio broadcast pronouncing the cause of Free France amidst the nation’s collapse before the German army.
This caught me:
We are worthy of our ancestors. We will not allow ourselves to be mastered, vassalized, conquered, colonized. We will not allow ourselves to be replaced
It’s an overtone of my wish, every Memorial Day, that we leave a society worthy of the sacrifice so many have made for this civilization.
The other overtone?
The moment isn’t a whole lot less grave.
Countdown to anguished “think” pieces on NPR starts now.
You do know that Mitterand was a s@cialist, yes? In fact, the first one ever in the Fifth Republic.
Zemmour to be vilified as a nazi, xenophobe, islamophobe and everyotherkindofphobe in three… two… one…
JPA’s right. That noted, I’m not quite sure I could, were I French, support someone who is not only a “Gaullist” but a “Bonapartist”. Should we sign up for someone who supports the “strong state” and a hereditary monarch? Didn’t we fight a war to end that kind of nonsense?
I agree to a degree with Mssr. Zemmour about how unlimited immigration from the Muslim world is causing problems there, but there’s a lot with which I disagree, too.
JDM – I do, but not an internatIonalist.
OK, I wonder if that’s a distinction without a difference, but OK.
I’ve learned through the years that trying to draw parallels between France and Anglo-Saxon countries (cultures) is usually disappointing. For example, an early bit of dirt on Zemmour has already come out
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10245687/Married-far-right-French-firebrand-Eric-Zemmour-expecting-lovechild-PA-28.html
but I don’t think this is the uh-oh moment in France that it would be in the UK/US. Might even be a net positive in France.
Casablanca is my favorite movie and the singing of the Marseillaise in Rick’s is one high point of many.
“here is looking at you, doc”
Doc – same.