Most Pomocon readers probably already caught this week or so old event, but if you didn’t, it’s really not to be missed. It is the presidential candidacy announcement speech by French politician Eric Zemmour, and is likely to become regarded as the most important political speech of 2021—but because youtube and other of your overlords don’t want you to watch it, you’re going to have to do a tad more work than usual. More on the yt censorship below, but here’s what you do:
Step 1: search for “Powerline, Will France Save the West?” That 11/30 Steven Hayward post will give you:
The official video of the (10-minute) speech, and you need this version for the full effect, because it is a video that incorporates thematic images, and matches a Beethoven piece with the pace of the speech.
An English transcript of the speech.
Step 2: Get both the transcript and the video up, each on its own window, and watch/read simultaneously. Even if you have no French whatsoever, there are enough shared words in English and French that you should be able to track where Zemmour is in the text. His intonation, the thematic images used, and the music are what make up the whole artful package, and what deliver its overall impact.
That Powerline post also gives you a link to a brand-new Claremont Review of Books piece by Christopher Caldwell, which in most-welcome detail explains Zemmour’s past, and what his candidacy might mean for France.
Zemmour is an a.) immigration restrictionist, and he is b.) realistic and frank about issues for France and Europe generally about Islam. So of course, he’s called a racist, and classified outright as such—often using the code-words like “extreme right”—by legacy media. But all of the signers of The Paris Statement (2017), which include major political philosophers who have deeply influenced us here at Postmodern Conservative, such as Philippe Bénéton, Rémi Brague, Chantal Delsol, Ryszard Legutko, Pierre Manent, and the much-missed Roger Scruton, also seem be a.) and b.)
Any info any Pomocon readers have about any of their reactions to Zemmour’s candidacy will be most welcome, BTW. Share in the comments.
The Caldwell piece does indicate that there is one incident where Zemmour made a too-categorical statement about Muslim unaccompanied-minor illegal aliens. There is another Powerline post titled “Zemmour in the Crosshairs” that details the various charges legacy media have brought up, many of them outright fabrications, nearly all of them made without links, to discredit Zemmour as a racist, etc.
As with the great but-similarly-media-slandered British politician Anne-Marie Waters, I see no clear evidence of racism or Islam-hatred (you can criticize a religion without hating it irrationally) in any of what Zemmour has said, and I won’t play this legacy-media game any longer anyhow. Whoever in Europe they declare to be xenophobic, beyond-the-pale, etc., I will give a second and third and fourth look to, and assume the legacy media’s lying and stacking-the-deck, with some exceptions made for older national front groups and leaders, or untrustworthy Coulter-like provocateurs like Katie Hopkins.
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And that brings us to one of the divisions of that evil monopoly, Alphabet/Google, the one called youtube, and its decision to put an age-restriction on the carefully- crafted campaign video of Zemmour’s speech.
For no reason that lines up with anything in their community standards.
That means that I cannot embed that video here. You will likely have difficulty sharing it on other platforms if you try.
As The Federalist writer Jordan Boyd of the story I just linked to puts it, that is youtube meddling in a French presidential election. And there seems to be evidence that both they and Google are making searches for Zemmour’s speech difficult.
So maybe take a Step 3 on this one: the next time you interact with any Republican politician, in person or by note, please find a way to slip-in a demand that the next time we have Republican Congress, it must break Alphabet up using old anti-trust-law and any new laws needed. Tell them you are sick of them doing nothing about this pattern of censorship, reliably of certain sides, that we are all far too used to.
An excellent summary of the question. Since you invite some further commentary, allow me to make one point and share my two interventions on Zemmour.
First: the campaign is a full frontal assault on judicial supremacy. For French politics, that's almost unprecedented, where judges in Paris and Strasbourg maintain a mystique that government has seriously challenged. Yet in the French system, the tools to take down judicial supremacy are even clearer than in the American system, because of the scope given to the referendum (via article 11 of the constitution of 1958, and the precedent for how de Gaulle made use of this in 1962). According to the constitutional precedent, the result of a referendum is not justiciable by the Conseil constitutionnel. Yet no government has exercised this tool to contest judicial proceedings. They have permitted the judges to tie their hands. Though other rightists have flirted with using that tool, only Zemmour is bold enough to follow through; one of his first books was called 'Le Coup d'État des juges'. He means what he says. That's why the alliance between Big tech and l'État profonde will go very far and endorse spectacular meddling. They are terrified of him.
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2021/12/nathan-pinkoski-on-ric-zemmour
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/08/the-most-controversial-man-in-france
Thanks for this note, Mr Pinkoski.