Zemmour's Letter to LICRA

There is an extended chronicle posted at François Desouche that gives a blow by blow account of what has transpired in the Éric Zemmour tornado ripping through the French media. It begins approximately with the events of March 22, and continues up to today. There are, as of now (Saturday night), 4,420 comments from readers. So you have some idea of the galvanizing effect this issue is having on the public.

How to summarize this? There is no way. I will do as I did before and present a scant overview of the goings-on. It does not appear that Zemmour will be fired by Le Figaro, and at least one Muslim website is implying that he is protected by his Jewish friends in the media, at Le Figaro in particular. Others are suspicious that Zemmour is merely the "official trouble-maker" of Nicolas Sarkozy and will suffer no consequences of the false witch hunt being staged. The case brought by LICRA (League against racism and anti-Semitism) against Zemmour was dropped following a persuasive justification from the journalist. Apologies that follow outbursts of political incorrectness always give rise to the notion that the person in question lacks the backbone to stick to his guns, but in this case, Zemmour had sufficient evidence to force the left-wing LICRA to back off.

Zemmour has been at this for a long time. He has been an outspoken critic of massive immigration, of political correctness, of government gag orders, of the destructiveness of modern feminism for many years; he has been writing books on these topics for a long time; he appears to be a man with a mission, almost obsessively so. If he is suddenly Sarkozy's puppet, it would be the cruelest trick yet played on the French people, who at least would like to believe they have a friend in Zemmour.

First a look at passages from the so-called "apology" sent by Zemmour to the president of LICRA, as reported by Marianne2.

Mr. President,

At the request of my attorney Olivier Pardo, I am sending this follow-up to our meeting. The meeting allowed us to ascertain that there had indeed been a misunderstanding and a confusion not only in the report by the media on what I had said, but also in the analysis that was made and that led to the media furor that surrounds me.

In truth, I never said, contrary to what the media have published, that "all criminals are Arab or black" but that "the majority of criminals are Arab or black."

My wish has never been to stigmatize "blacks or Arabs" as criminals, but if this sentence, taken out of context, offended some, I am sorry.

Note: Zemmour then launches into a critique of the way the media presented or misrepresented his words. He describes his sincere sympathy for honest Arabs and blacks who work hard and who suffer from being associated with the violence of the gangs who are also Arab and black. However, he points out that the honest worker should not deny the deeds of the criminals, just because of a common origin.

They have deliberately forgotten that my now famous statement was only a response to the arguments developed by the other guests on the show according to whom "the police only arrest Arabs and blacks". This double stigmatization - of the police and of Arabs and blacks - does not shock anybody. "Arabs and blacks" can be distinguished from the rest of the "national community" when they are heros or victims. In all other cases, it is infamous to make a distinction. This universalist injunction would suit me, since I tend to see all Frenchmen as children of the fatherland, without distinction of race or religion, as the preamble of our Constitution says.

But now they are also condemning me for this position, deemed to be out-of-date, very "Third Republic" and emitting an odor of neocolonialism. In the name of the right to be different, in the name of modernity, one must exalt one's roots and the riches of a multicultural society. But when you go so far as to show the darker side of this sunny landscape, then they become furiously universalist!

Zemmour then proceeds to show that his statement is based on verifiable statistics. He first quotes Christian Delorme, a priest from Lyons, who engages in inter-religious dialogue with Muslims, and who famously said in December 2001:

"In France we are not able to say certain things, sometimes for laudable reasons. This is true of the overrepresentation among criminals of young immigrants, which has long been denied, on grounds that they must not be stigmatized. We waited until the reality of the ghettoes, the police, the courts, the prisons, imposed proof of this overrepresentation before we could recognize it publicly. And the politicians still don't know how to talk about it."

Then, he provides this data:

A few years ago, an inquiry ordered by the Justice Ministry, to evaluate the number of imams that were needed, evaluated the percentage of Muslims in prison to be between 70 and 80%. In 2004, the Islamologist Farhad Khosrokhvar, in a book entitled L'Islam dans les prisons confirmed this figure. In 2007, an article in Le Point, which had been granted access to the conclusions of the DCSP (similar to the FBI), and to those of the judiciary police, evaluated the number of immigrants among reported suspects to be between 60 and 70%. Almost ten years ago, Commissioner Lucienne Bui Trong, in charge of urban violence at the RG (also like the FBI) found that 85% of the perpetrators were of Maghrebin origin. The RG reports on gang violence, published by Le Monde on March 16, 2010, determined that 87% were of French nationality; 67% of Maghrebin origin and 17% of African origin. Hence, the "majority" is the suitable word with regard to these figures.

Zemmour then moves on to the topic of discrimination:

They also condemn me for questioning the principle of "discrimination". But I still think that the very concept of "discrimination" is dangerous, that it encourages denunciations and non-accountability. And since when do we not have the right to question the soundness of a law in France? This question of discriminations is potentially explosive in an egalitarian country such as France. When certain major employers declare that they will only hire "people from the ranks of the immigrants, and in any case not white males" that too is a discrimination, but no one cares. It is to avoid these endless disputes that I say that "discrimination is life", that is to say, freedom of choice. We have to treat real problems differently. In any case, we can debate them in a free country.

Today there exists a harmful atmosphere that permeates the French democratic discourse. The country of Voltaire - "I don't agree with what you say but I will fight so that you can say it" - is becoming the country of Torquemada that kills the heretic to save his soul. (...)

The author of the Marianne2 article, linked above, adds that immigration and crime should not be forbidden topics so as not to increase the strength of the Front National, and that the land of Voltaire should defend all points of view, marginal though they may be. Marianne2, being a left-leaning publication, is probably more afraid of the Front National than of the consequences for France of Islam, crime, immigration, etc...

Below is a brief video of Zemmour showing him on the television program "Salut les terriens" (Hello, Earth people), making the statement about why blacks and Arabs are monitored more closely than others. The black girl is television journalist Rokhaya Diallo. There are French subtitles, making it much easier to translate:




- EZ: Since there are certain neighborhoods with a majority of immigrants from Africa or North Africa, it is perfectly normal for them to live according to their customs. And those in the minority - the native-born French minority - when they have the means, leave as soon as they can

- Diallo: Because they have the means

- EZ: IF they have the means... because the old folk who stay are forced to travel far to find a butcher shop that isn't halal. And that's the whole thing, that's why people separate, and then later they speak of ghettoes and segregation. And it's because there is drug trafficking in those neighborhoods...

- Diallo: Come on. You're mixing everything up. Drugs, obscure customs...

- EZ: I'm not mixing anything up at all...

- Diallo (sarcastic): They practice polygamy and female circumcision

- EZ: There is polygamy and lots of crime...

- Diallo: You're making a caricature

- EZ: Not at all

- Diallo: Crime is not a monopoly of the poorer neighborhoods. Do you know your politicians? There is after all a mayor of Levallois who is a famous criminal and not from a poorer neighborhood

- EZ: What is the connection? What is the connection?

- Diallo: Crime exists in the milieus that you live in, Mr. Zemmour

- EZ: Between drug trafficking and white-collar crime there is a little difference

- Bernard Murat: Eric, you say that they want to live like that. No. You forget what preceded. When you are checked by the police 17 times a day it changes your character...

- EZ: But why... why...

- Bernard Murat: Wait... Wait

- EZ: But why are they checked 17 times a day? It's because the majority of drug dealers are blacks or Arabs. It's a fact.

- Bernard Murat: Not necessarily

- EZ: Yes it is, yes it is.

At the very end you will see Ardisson, the show's host, laugh and pretend to be at once shocked and embarrassed by Zemmour's words. Zemmour claims this scene was added to the video later. He also claims that Ardisson, far from being shocked, had encouraged him to speak the truth during the debate.