In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Éric Zemmour, a French nationalist politician and founder of Reconquête. His campaigns centre on immigration, Islam and national decline. For years, he also held up Vladimir Putin as a model for France.
Born in Montreuil near Paris in 1958, Zemmour built a career as a journalist, author and television commentator. He joined Le Figaro in 1996, became known for confrontational TV debates and founded Reconquête in December 2021.
Vincent Bolloré’s CNews gave him a daily platform in 2019. Zemmour won 7.07% in the 2022 presidential election and is running again for 2027. Our Soup on the media empire that helped him rise:
He promotes the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that immigration is replacing the French population. He refuses to distinguish Islam from Islamism and has proposed requiring parents to give their children French first names.
His current programme calls for stopping legal and illegal immigration and “remigrating” irregular migrants, foreign offenders and long-term unemployed foreigners. It would reserve non-contributory benefits, family allowances and social housing for French citizens.
His conception of power also targets checks on the majority. In 2021, he argued that judges should fall silent when the people speak, and called for taking power away from courts, media and minorities. A referendum would be his way around those constraints.
His admiration for Putin was ideological. In 2013, he praised Putin for restoring Russia’s state and defending national identity, family and Orthodoxy—a model of authority and national restoration he wanted for France.
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In 2014, he declared that “Ukraine does not exist” and described it as a patchwork country. He also compared Russia’s hold over Ukraine to France’s former African sphere: an exclusive preserve. Ukrainian independence barely entered the picture.
Russian intermediaries noticed. A Dossier Center/JDD investigation traced a September 2015 meeting with Vladimir Yakunin, a former KGB officer and Putin associate. Yakunin’s correspondence welcomed Zemmour as an influential figure Russia needed.
In January 2016, Zemmour visited Saint Petersburg and spoke at a conference linked to Yakunin. He also gave Rossiya 24 an interview, broadcast on 5 February, presenting the Ukraine crisis as a US creation designed to separate France and Germany from Russia.
In L’Opinion on 18 September 2018, he praised Putin for trying to restore Russia’s greatness. Asked whether he dreamed of a French Putin, he agreed. This was four years after Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
On France 2 on 9 December 2021, he bet that Russia would not invade Ukraine. On 18 January 2022, he defended Putin’s demands and called for Ukraine to be kept outside NATO. The video brings together his praise, justifications and failed prediction.
His written policy followed the same logic. In February 2022, he proposed ending NATO enlargement and keeping Ukraine outside both blocs. After Putin recognised the separatist entities in Donbas, Zemmour condemned the violation but still opposed sanctions.
On 24 February 2022, he explicitly condemned Russia’s invasion as unjustifiable and acknowledged that Russia had been neither attacked nor directly threatened by Ukraine. He called for an immediate ceasefire and French mediation.
But the indulgence survived. On RTL on 3 March 2024, he called Russia an “authoritarian democracy” and insisted that Putin enjoyed popular support. Responding to Macron’s discussion of Western troops in Ukraine, he argued for negotiations and compromise.
On BFMTV on 17 September 2026, he denied admiring Putin. Confronted with his French-Putin dream, he first placed it 15 years earlier, then counted 2018 as ten years ago. The interviewer corrected him: eight. Zemmour said he admired the great dead, not the living.
That evening, he criticised Putin for refusing peace and praised Ukrainians defending their independence. But aid to Ukraine was “not on my list now”. He also warned that Ukraine’s growing defence industry could one day compete with France’s.
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