As Eric Zemmour Climbs in Polls, Scholar Discusses What it Might Mean for Israel and France's Jews

France's presidential race is set for April 2022 and one leading right-wing candidate has already created a gap with Marine Le Pen, another conservative contender for the top post. Chances are high that Zemmour will enter the second round of elections, in which he will go face-to-face with current leader Emmanuel Macron.

Eric Zemmour, one of the right-wing contenders in the French presidential race known for his controversial comments against Muslims, keeps climbing in polls, despite the fact that he hasn't formally declared his candidacy.

According to a Harris Interactive opinion poll that was conducted earlier this month, the conservative commentator is projected to win 18-19 percent of first-round votes in the race set for April 2022, thus widening the gap with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing Rassemblement National party.

President Emmanuel Macron is still leading in those polls, but the chances that Zemmour will be facing him in the second round of the presidential race is no longer a far-fetched prospect.

No Political Correctness

Dr. Emmanuel Navon, an Israeli expert specialising in France and Israel-French relations at Tel Aviv University, pins Zemmour's rising popularity on a number of factors.

"First of all, he is not an ethnic French. He was assimilated into the nation and he believes that all the other immigrants can do that too. The French love this".

"But they also love the fact that he is unapologetic, he is not politically correct. He is talking to the elites, looking them straight in the eye, and he does it in a sophisticated manner. The right-wing public has been waiting for such a person."

Jews Are Divided Over Zemmour

However, France's Jews, says Navon, are rather divided over their attitude towards Zemmour and his opinions.

Some, especially those who live in blighted neighbourhoods and must suffer on an almost daily basis from the harassment of Muslim immigrants, are more prone to vote for Zemmour.

Others, who belong to the religious institutions, seem to oppose the right-wing contender, primarily because they are close to the country's liberal circles, specifically Macron.

However, closeness to Macron is far from being the only factor, and Navon says Zemmour's views have been a major deterrent as well.

"Zemmour believes that practicing a religion, including Judaism, should be a purely private matter. He also believes that the Jewish allegiance should be pledged to the French state only. And this is not the way the French Jewry operates as many of them have strong connections to Israel."

French Interests First

If Zemmour comes to power, he is unlikely to make any concessions to France's Jewish citizens. Nor will he make compromises when it comes to Israel, believes Navon.

"Zemmour is supportive of Israel and he believes that the Jewish state has the right to defend itself. But at the same time, it is not the centre of his attention. Domestic issues are. At the end of the day, he will do what's best for the French interests," summed up the scholar.

Those interests often contradict Israel's, and history remembers a number of instances, when the two states didn't see eye-to-eye with each other.

In 1967, during Israel's Six Day War, France imposed an arms embargo on the region that primarily hurt the Jewish state. Decades later, in 2016, Paris decided to label Israeli products manufactured in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and more recently, it slammed officials in Jerusalem for proceeding with settlement activity in territory outside the country's pre-1967 borders.

Zemmour is likely to continue this and similar policies vis-a-vis Israel. Will that harm relations between the states? It's highly improbable, not when trade between the two nations continues to be a strong pillar.