Presidential candidate Éric Zemmour in France

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Éric Justin Léon Zemmour (born 31 August 1958) is a French far-right political journalist, essayist, writer and pundit. He was editor and panelist on Face à l'Info, a daily show broadcast on CNews, from 2019 to 2021. He politically self-identifies as Gaullist and Bonapartist.

Born in Montreuil, Zemmour studied at Sciences Po. He worked as a reporter for Le Quotidien de Paris from 1986 to 1996. He then joined Le Figaro, where he worked until 2021. Zemmour appeared as a television personality on shows such as On n'est pas couché on France 2 (2006–2011) and Ça se dispute on I-Télé (2003–2014). He also appeared on Zemmour et Naulleau from 2011 to 2021, a weekly evening talk show on Paris Première, together with literary critic Éric Naulleau. Zemmour worked in parallel for RTL from 2010 until 2019, first hosting the daily radio show Z comme Zemmour, prior to joining Yves Calvi's morning news show as an analyst. His book The French Suicide (Le Suicide français) sold more than 500,000 copies in 2014.

Zemmour is well known for his controversial views regarding immigration and Islam in France. He has extensively supported the "great replacement", a conspiracy theory contending that France's native population will be replaced by non-European people. Zemmour was fined for incitement to racial discrimination in 2011 and for incitement of hate against Muslims in 2018, although the latter conviction is pending review before the European Court of Human Rights. He was acquitted six times of similar charges, in 2008, 2014 (twice), 2016, 2017 and 2019. Convictions in 2015 and 2020 were overturned on appeal.

Zemmour announced his candidacy for the 2022 French presidential election on 30 November 2021, running as an independent. Early polling has suggested he could qualify for the second round, a rise which The Guardian has described as "meteoric". In 2021, a New York Times article described Zemmour's views as "hard-line... on immigration, Islam’s place in France and national identity". He has advocated for vast reforms to France's political system.

Éric Zemmour was born on 31 August 1958 in Montreuil, at that time in the Seine department, now part of Seine-Saint-Denis. His parents were Berber Jews from Algeria with French citizenship who came to metropolitan France during the Algerian War. He grew up first in Drancy and later in the Paris Château Rouge quarter. The son of Roger Zemmour (a paramedic) and his wife Lucette, a housewife, he has said he admires his mother and grandmother, as his father was often absent; he was raised by women "who taught [him] to be a man".

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