A far-right, rabidly anti-immigrant pundit who has called for a ban on foreign-sounding names and recently had to apologize for flipping the bird at a member of the public has announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential election in France. Shock jock Eric Zemmour has been compared to Donald Trump for using his media profile to gatecrash a presidential election, as well as obsession with past glories and his propensity to scapegoat migrants for France’s problems. In a video announcing his candidacy, he effectively promised to Make France Great Again, saying: “It is no longer time to reform France, but to save it. That’s why I decided to run for president.” Previously, he complained that France is being “submerged” by migrants and proposed that parents should have to give kids “French names.” Like Trump, Zemmour often attacks reporters and recently dismissed the news media as “a propaganda machine that hates France.” Last week, Zemmour raised a middle finger at a female voter and told her that his finger would go “very deep.” He later admitted his actions were “very inelegant.”
