Initially, it was to protest against the arrival of Eric Zemmour in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) for a BFM-TV show. The filming was finally transferred elsewhere due to the refusal to accommodate the candidate stated by the association managing the planned location. The mayor, Patrice Bessac (French Communist Party), nevertheless maintained the proposed appointment. Several hundred people of all ages actually gathered, Wednesday 9 February in the late afternoon, in the main square of the city, in front of the town hall, to mark their opposition to the polemicist and “to show that a happy and united France is possible”. On this occasion, M. Bessac launched his “Montreuil appeal”, encouraging all those who refuse ideas “rancid” defended by the candidate of Reconquest! to “raise your head”.
The gathering in Montreuil had a strong symbolic dimension. It is in this commune of the near suburbs of Paris that Eric Zemmour was born, in 1958, in a modest family arrived from Algiers in metropolis in 1952. The Seine-Saint-Denis is a department that the former columnist often presents as a “foreign enclave”, the proof and the very emblem of this far-right theory of the “great replacement” that it propagates. Is the department not the one where, apart from Mayotte, the proportion of immigrants in the population is the highest?
“Even if this is his hometown, he says anything”, Ms. Swann and Myriam, two 15-year-old high school girls who came, on Wednesday night, to say “no to Zemmour” and “forget it while partying”. Luce Ahodi, who works in a bank, does not say anything else : “Eric Zemmour may have been born here, but he has obviously forgotten what this city is. Montreuil is the international airport of all immigrants, and we are proud of it! A city where we fight for a better world. »
“This is my home”
Sama and Amane, two mothers from the popular district of La Noue, are also full of praise for the model that Montreuil represents. “What’s the word, already? Frat… Yes, fraternity, that’s it”, explains Sama. And to quote what she finds at the neighborhood house : “Everyone has their origins, their religion, their culture, but frankly you don’t feel the difference. Once a month, we meet for a meal together, where we share recipes. Come tomorrow, we will learn how to make Vietnamese cuisine. »
On the microphone, Assia, a young girl of Algerian origin, pleads the same cause : “Algeria, I only know it for the holidays. This is my place. I am 20 years old, I am a Muslim, I understand that it raises questions, but it does not justify being afraid. »
For Mr. Bessac, Montreuil has nothing of the foreign enclave described by Mr. Zemmour. “Our city is the image of the country, he says. Everyone comes from somewhere, everyone is here at home. » Reason why he intended to protest against the coming of the presidential candidate and now asks, to “all democrats” of’“to prevent the deployment of these dark forces. » A position obviously denounced by the supporters of Mr. Zemmour : “Montreuil does not belong to its communist mayor who drapes himself in the great principles, which the communist party trampled and still tramples, to prohibit the coming of Zemmour”, his spokesman, Gilbert Collard, wrote on Twitter on February 2.