Éric Zemmour: The anti-immigration insurgent reshaping the race for the French presidency

When 22-year-old Thaïs D'Escufon looks out her window, she sees a France that's disappearing. She posts provocative videos about it on YouTube — she has already been banned from TikTok — warning of a flood of migrants threatening the country.

The suburbs, she says, feel like a foreign country, and France's streets are no longer safe for white women.

More and more young people are tuning in to these views, even though they are exaggerated. They provide a populist answer to the insecurity about employment and the future that many of the country's young are feeling.

"I definitely support Éric Zemmour," she says. "I think he's a very, very brave person, that everyone says he's a demon."

Mr Zemmour gained notoriety as a journalist and pundit, with a million viewers tuning in to his appearances on conservative news channel C-News.

He popularised a conspiracy theory called "The Great Replacement", which claims white Europeans are being replaced by Muslims from Africa and the Middle East.

If elected, Mr Zemmour has proposed a program of "re-migration" which would see a million foreigners deported within five years.

Such extreme views were once unacceptable and consigned to the toxic margins of French politics.

In the last election, in 2017, far-right politician Marine Le Pen campaigned on a similar platform. She spoke against immigration and Islam, but lost to the upstart former banker, Emmanuel Macron.

Ms Le Pen is standing again and, this time, is presenting a more moderate image that is winning over voters. She's coming second in the polls — and rising.

That's allowed space for Éric Zemmour's extremist views to take hold on the political extreme right.

One in three voters are now saying they will vote for a far-right candidate when the country goes to the polls this weekend.

If no-one wins an outright majority on Sunday, then there will be another election two weeks later between the top two candidates.

Many are predicting it will be the current president, Macron, going head-to-head with a re-energised Le Pen.

Thaïs D'Escufon says Marine Le Pen is too "soft". Her moderation is a "betrayal" of her voters, she says. Thaïs wants Éric Zemmour to win the election.

"He loves France and wants to defend it," she says. "I really hope he will be elected because people just say to him, 'Please save us".

Thaïs, from Toulouse, is one of a growing band of far-right influencers trying to win over apathetic young French voters.

While surveys show most young people are concerned about global issues such as climate change and the environment, they are not engaged by the presidential candidates, and many simply will not vote.

Participation rates have been falling precipitously in recent elections, with a third of eligible voters aged 18 to 25 failing to vote in 2017.

France's youth have traditionally thrown their support behind left-wing candidates, but at the last election many flocked to the right.

Thaïs has gained a following online for her extreme views.  She was once part of the banned nationalist movement Generation Identity and has been convicted for "creating public disorder". Yet she persists, vehemently denouncing the laws that are designed to restrain hate speech.

"I want to defend my identity as a French person," she says. "This is considered you are a racist, the worst thing you can be, just for saying that you love your country and want to defend it."

In one YouTube video, she argues "white privilege" has driven much of the world's progress over the centuries.

And she continues to rail against what she describes as "mass immigration", despite no such program currently existing in France.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-07/zemmour-french-election-far-right-foreign-correspondent/100968198