Macron, Emmanuel (1977- )

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      How Éric Zemmour Is Turning French Politics Upside Down

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      Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant writer and TV commentator, is surging in opinion polls before presidential elections next year — and he is not yet a candidate.PARIS — He is the anti-immigration son of parents from Algeria. He styles himself as the great defender of France’s Christian civilization, though he himself is Jewish. He channels Donald J. Trump in an anti-establishment campaign. And he is now scrambling the battle lines before France’s presidential election in April.The meteoric rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author and TV pundit, has turned France’spolitics upside down.Until a few weeks ago, most had expected France’s next presidential elections to be a predictable rematch between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen that, polls showed, left voters who wanted alternatives deeply dissatisfied.Though still not a declared candidate, Mr. Zemmour, 63, shot to No. 2 in a poll of likely voters last week, disrupting campaign strategies across the board, even beyond those of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen.“The French want to upset a political order that hasn’t won them over, and Éric Zemmour appears to be the bowling ball that’s going to knock down all the pins,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po University specializing in elections and the right.Mr. Perrineau warned that voters were not seriously focused yet on the elections and that polls could be volatile.Yet candidates are not taking any chances.Mr. Macron’s campaign has focused on winning support on the right and forcing a showdown with Ms. Le Pen, in the belief that the French would reject her party in the second round of voting, as they have for decades.Now it is far less clear whom he would meet in a runoff: A strong showing in the first round could propel Mr. Zemmour into the second one, or it could split the far-right electorate to allow a center-right candidate to qualify for the finals.After weeks of ignoring Mr. Zemmour, Mr. Macron is now criticizing him, though not by name, while government ministers and other Macron allies have unleashed a barrage of attacks.Mr. Zemmour is the author of several books, and a star on the right-wing CNews network. Nicolas Tucat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Zemmour’s rise has been most unsettling for Ms. Le Pen, who is plummeting in the polls — so much so that her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party founder, said that he would support Mr. Zemmour if the writer were in a stronger position.Ms. Le Pen has for years tried to broaden her base with a so-called un-demonizing strategy of moving her nationalist, anti-immigrant party from the most extreme xenophobic positions that it was known for under her father. Now she finds herself in the unusual position of being outflanked on the right.Mr. Zemmour became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fueled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a “great replacement” of white people, a conspiracy theory that has been cited by gunmen in multiple mass shootings.As the child of Algerians who settled in metropolitan France, he has presented himself as the embodiment of France’s successful system of assimilation. He has said that the failure to integrate recent generations of Muslim immigrants lies with the new arrivals, who hate France, and not with a system that others say has not kept up with the times.Mr. Zemmour’s influence rose to an entirely new level in the past two years after he became the star of CNews, a new Fox-style news network that gave him a platform to expound on his views every evening.His supporters include voters most deeply shaken by the social forces that have roiled French society more recently and that they now lump into “wokisme” — a #MeToo movement that has led to the fall of powerful men; a racial awakening challenging France’s image of itself as a colorblind society; the emergence of a new generation questioning the principles of the French Republic; and the perceived growing threat of an American-inspired vision of society.“In its history, France has always had a strong cultural identity, but now there’s deep anxiety about that identity,” Mr. Perrineau said. “People feel that their culture, their way of life and their political system, all is being changed. It’s enough.”Mr. Zemmour at a book promotion event in Nice last month.Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Éric Zemmour plays on that very well, on this nostalgia for the past, and this fear of no longer being a great power, of dissolving in a conglomerate that we don’t understand, whether it’s Europe or globalization or the Americanization of culture,” he added.In the 2017 election, Mr. Macron was the new face who overturned the existing political order. But during his presidency, “the new world of Emmanuel Macron has come to look a lot like the old world,” disillusioning voters, Mr. Perrineau said.Philippe Olivier, a close aide to Ms. Le Pen and a member of the European Parliament, said that French voters seek a larger-than-life figure in their president.“In the United States, a president could be a movie actor like Reagan or a carnival performer like Trump,” said Mr. Olivier, who is also Ms. Le Pen’s brother-in-law. “In France, we elect the king.”But the two-round system compels much of the electorate to vote in the runoffs against candidates — and not for someone of their liking.“In the second round, the point is who is more repulsive,” Mr. Olivier said. “I believe Macron would be more rejected than Marine, but Zemmour would be much more rejected than Macron.”As France has grown more conservative in recent years, Mr. Macron has tacked right on many issues to try to grab a bigger electoral slice, especially among voters in the traditional center-right Republicans party.The Republicans, who have yet to select their presidential candidate, are now facing a new threat themselves, because Mr. Zemmour draws support from them as well as from the far right.In their own bid to attract far-right voters, many leaders on the traditional right have flirted with Mr. Zemmour in recent years, excusing or overlooking the fact that the writer has been sanctioned for inciting racial hatred.“The traditional right made a serious mistake that is now exploding in their face,” said Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Radical Politics. “Because it’s long been in competition against the far right on issues like national identity, immigration and sovereignty, it kept winking at Zemmour.”A fan taking a photo with Mr. Zemmour at a book signing in Toulon last month.Eric Gaillard/ReutersNow the traditional right is looking for ways to distance itself from the TV star without alienating his supporters.Patrick Stefanini, a Republican who ran President Jacques Chirac’s successful 1995 campaign, said Mr. Zemmour was benefiting from divisions within the traditional right on issues like immigration.“Mr. Zemmour has turned immigration into the single key to understanding the difficulties facing French society,” said Mr. Stefanini, who is now leading the presidential bid of Valérie Pécresse, the head of the Paris region. “The Republicans are having a little trouble positioning themselves because the tendencies aren’t the same within the Republicans.”Mr. Stefanini attributed Mr. Zemmour’s rise partly to the traditional right’s failure to quickly decide on a candidate, and said he felt confident that the TV star’s ratings would peter out.But for now, many voters appear to be taking a look at Mr. Zemmour, who has been attracting huge crowds at campaign-like events across France as he promotes his latest book, “France Has Not Said Its Last Word Yet.”Last week, three residents of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a wealthy suburb of Paris, came together to attend an event with Mr. Zemmour in the capital.Françoise Torneberg, who said she was in her 70s, said she liked Mr. Zemmour because “he gives a kick in the anthill,” she said.Her friend Andrée Chalmandrier, 69, said, “We love France but not the France of today.”“We’re not at home,” Ms. Chalmandrier said, adding that often when she shops in her suburb, “I’m the only French representative. There are four or five veiled women around me, who furthermore are extremely arrogant.”“And yet it’s a good neighborhood,” Ms. Torneberg said. “It’s not at all a working-class neighborhood.”Léontine Gallois contributed reporting. More

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      Europe’s Social Democrats Show Signs of Life, but France Poses a Roadblock

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      Center-left parties have won a string of victories, capped by Olaf Scholz’s win in Germany. Yet, France’s struggling Socialists threaten hopes for a broader social democratic revival. PARIS — For France’s venerable Socialist Party, languishing at 4 percent support ahead of next year’s presidential elections, news of a surprise win last Sunday by its center-left counterpart in Germany offered a glimmer of hope.The slim victory by Olaf Scholz and Germany’s Social Democratic Party, along with the expected return to power of Norway’s Labor Party following a recent win, have underscored the recent success of Europe’s long-embattled social democrats. If Mr. Scholz succeeds in forming a government, social democrats in Europe’s most powerful nation will join center-left governments in Spain, Portugal and the Nordic nations of Sweden, Denmark and Finland, as well as Norway.Attention will then turn to France, where presidential elections are scheduled for next April. But in France, experts say, the social democrats’ hopes of a continent-wide revival are likely to dim.Socialist Party officials were nevertheless quick to seize on the German results as a sign that Europe’s political tides may be turning.“Never assume the battle’s already lost,’’ the Socialists’ leader, Olivier Faure, said in a Twitter post. The party’s presidential candidate, Anne Hidalgo, noted that Mr. Scholz “had beaten the odds’’ thanks to policies common to both social democratic parties.But it will take more than that to reverse the fortunes of a party that not so long ago utterly dominated French politics.After months of hinting that she would run for president, Ms. Hidalgo, 62, the second-term mayor of Paris, finally announced her candidacy in mid-September. But instead of getting an expected bounce in the polls, her approval ratings have drifted lower.Her polling is now far below not only the two favorites to meet in a showdown — President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, of the far-right National Rally — but also well below candidates from the center-right and Éric Zemmour, a writer and TV star known for his far-right views, who is not yet an official candidate.Ms. Hidalgo and President Emmanuel Macron of France in Paris this month. Mr. Macron has tried to draw voters from the left, weakening the Socialists’ position. Pool photo by Ludovic MarinOn the other side of the political spectrum, she trails the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and is neck and neck with the newly designated presidential candidate of the Greens, Yannick Jadot, polls show.The Socialists’ collapse is even more noteworthy because, less than a decade ago under the Socialist President François Hollande, the party controlled the Élysée Palace, both chambers of Parliament, a majority of big cities and nearly all the regions.“Nine years ago, this party held all the cards,’’ said Pascal Delwit, a political scientist specializing in social democracy at the Free University of Brussels. “Nine years later, it has none.’’In what became a symbol of its fall, the Socialist Party had to abandon its longtime headquarters, in one of the toniest neighborhoods of Paris, for cheaper real estate in a suburb, or banlieue, that many members never bothered visiting.Alain Bergounioux, a historian who is an expert on the Socialist Party, said that beyond crumbling at the ballot box, Socialists seem to have lost the ability to push forward their ideas and themes in a fast-moving political landscape.“They really don’t influence the national debate any longer, as public opinion has shifted to the right,’’ Mr. Bergounioux said.He added, “If it was premature to say that social democracy was dead, it would be overstating it to say that there is a renaissance.’’Seven months before the presidential elections, issues dear to the right — like immigration, crime and national identity — are dominating the political discourse. While Mr. Macron ran as a centrist in 2017, he has tacked right in a bid for the biggest slice of the electorate.The focus on these themes has only increased in recent weeks, with the intense news media attention on a possible candidacy by Mr. Zemmour. Styling himself as a Trump-like populist outsider, he has been visiting different regions on a book tour that has doubled as a campaign. A poll released this week showed that his support among potential voters in the first round of the elections has kept climbing, to 13 percent, or just three percentage points below Ms. Le Pen.Marine Le Pen at a National Rally event in Frejus in September.Daniel Cole/Associated PressFrance is an extreme, though revealing, example of the problems afflicting social democratic parties across Europe, experts say.While social democratic parties have lost support nearly everywhere amid the political fragmentation on the continent, France’s Socialist Party was also decimated by Mr. Macron’s successful creation of his centrist La République en Marche party. Some Socialist leaders abandoned their old party to join Mr. Macron, who had served as Mr. Hollande’s economy minister. In forming his government, Mr. Macron also poached from the center-right, which was less weakened than the center-left and remains a force in French politics.For decades, social democratic parties appealed to a core base of unionized, industrial workers and urban professionals with a vision of social justice and an equitable economy.But many longtime French supporters felt betrayed by Mr. Hollande’s business-friendly policies as French Socialists, like their counterparts elsewhere, were unable to protect their traditional base from globalization.While French Socialists hark back to their traditional values and now emphasize their commitment to the environment, their vision for society lacks a “strong spine,’’ Mr. Bergounioux said. In France, like elsewhere, the constituencies supporting social democratic parties tend to be made up of “aging, loyal voters who have voted for them their entire lives,’’ Mr. Delwit said.In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, the recent success of social democratic parties rested on successful jockeying — and not on the attraction of a fresh social democratic vision, experts said.Ernst Stetter, a member of the Social Democratic Party in Germany and former secretary general of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, an umbrella group of social democratic think tanks across the continent, said the party’s victory last Sunday was “first and foremost a strategic victory” by Mr. Scholz.As vice chancellor and finance minister in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Scholz offered “change in continuity by offering a little bit more social programs, a little bit more on the environment and continuity in European and international affairs,’’ said Mr. Stetter, who is also an analyst at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute in Paris.Narrow as it was, Mr. Scholz’s victory represented “the center of the Social Democratic Party, not the left,’’ said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French-German politician and former Green member of the European Parliament.Olaf Scholz and Ms. Hidalgo at a campaign event for Germany’s Social Democratic Party in  Cologne, Germany, this month. The French Socialists have been reassured by Mr. Scholz’s victory in last month’s election, but their chances of matching his victory appear slim.Uta Wagner/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSocialists in Spain, Portugal and the Nordic nations also owed their success to responding to local needs, not a common vision of social democracy, Mr. Cohn-Bendit said.“On immigration policy, social democrats in Denmark are to the right of many centrist parties,’’ Mr. Cohn-Bendit said, referring to a series of hard-line immigration measures adopted by Denmark’s Social Democrats.Following years of a rise in right-wing parties, social democrats now lead governments in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and are poised to do so in Norway. But their hold on power is far more tenuous than in the past.In Norway, the Labor Party, led by Jonas Gahr Stoere, came in first in last month’s parliamentary election, but won only a little over a quarter of the total seats, one of the party’s lowest scores on record. After talks to form a broad center-left coalition failed in recent days, Mr. Stoere is now expected to become prime minister of a minority government.“There isn’t a new definition yet of what social democracy could be in today’s world,’’ Mr. Cohn-Bendit said.Mr. Stetter said he, too, was skeptical of a broad revival of social democracy. Over the past decade, social democrats had worked unsuccessfully for a revival under the banner of the “Next Left,’’ he said.Still, Mr. Stetter said he hoped that last Sunday’s election results in Germany could presage positive developments for social democrats in Europe.“If Scholz succeeds in forming a government as a social democratic chancellor, there would be a dynamic force at the heart of Europe, and that could give energy to the French Socialist Party in the campaign period before the presidential elections in April,’’ Mr. Stetter. “We have to remain optimistic.’’Members of Jeunes Socialistes, the youth organisation of the Socialist Party, at an event in August. European socialist parties tend to rely heavily on aging voters, putting them on the wrong side of the demographic tide.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times More

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      Can Macron Lead the European Union After Merkel Retires?

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      Emmanuel Macron, the French president, would love to fill the German chancellor’s shoes. But a Europe with no single, central figure may be more likely.PARIS — After Germans vote on Sunday and a new government is formed, Chancellor Angela Merkel will leave office after 16 years as the dominant figure in European politics. It is the moment that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has been waiting for.The German chancellor, though credited for navigating multiple crises, was long criticized for lacking strategic vision. Mr. Macron, whose more swaggering style has sometimes ruffled his European partners — and Washington — has put forward ideas for a more independent and integrated Europe, better able to act in its own defense and its own interests.But as the Anglo-American “betrayal” in the Australian submarine affair has underscored, Mr. Macron sometimes possesses ambitions beyond his reach. Despite the vacuum Ms. Merkel leaves, a Macron era is unlikely to be born.Instead, analysts say, the European Union is heading for a period of prolonged uncertainty and potential weakness, if not necessarily drift. No one figure — not even Mr. Macron, or a new German chancellor — will be as influential as Ms. Merkel was at her strongest, an authoritative, well-briefed leader who quietly managed compromise and built consensus among a long list of louder and more ideological colleagues.That raises the prospect of paralysis or of Europe muddling through its challenges — on what to do about an increasingly indifferent America, on China and Russia, and on trade and technology — or even of a more dangerous fracturing of the bloc’s always tentative unity.And it will mean that Mr. Macron, who is himself up for re-election in April and absorbed in that uncertain campaign, will need to wait for a German government that may not be in place until January or longer, and then work closely with a weaker German chancellor.“We’ll have a weak German chancellor on top of a larger, less unified coalition,’’ said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “A weaker chancellor is less capable of exerting influence in Europe, and then with the Macron election, the political cycles of these two key countries will not be in sync.”Campaign posters this month in Berlin showing the top candidates for chancellor: Olaf Scholz, Armin Laschet and Annalena Baerbock.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockThe uncertainty is likely to last until after the French parliamentary elections in June — and that’s presuming Mr. Macron wins.Mr. Macron has argued forcefully that Europe must do more to protect its own interests in a world where China is rising and the United States is focusing on Asia. His officials are already trying to prepare the ground on some key issues, looking forward to January, when France takes over the rotating European Union presidency. But given the likelihood of lengthy coalition talks in Germany, the window for accomplishment is narrow.Mr. Macron will need German help. While France and Germany together can no longer run the European Union by themselves, when they agree, they tend to bring the rest of the bloc along with them.So building a relationship with the new German chancellor, even a weaker one, will be a primary goal for Mr. Macron. He must be careful, noted Daniela Schwarzer, executive director for Europe and Eurasia of the Open Societies Foundations, not to scare off the Germans.“Macron’s leadership is disruptive, and the German style is to change institutions incrementally,” she said. “Both sides will need to think through how they make it possible for the other side to answer constructively.’’French officials understand that substantive change will be slow, and they will want to build on initiatives already underway, like the analysis of Europe’s interests called “the strategic compass” and a modest but steady increase in military spending on new capabilities through the new European Defense Fund and a program called Pesco, intended to promote joint projects and European interoperability.After the humiliation of the scuttled submarine deal, when Australia suddenly canceled a contract with France and chose a deal with Britain and the United States instead, many of his European colleagues are more likely now to agree with Mr. Macron that Europe must be less dependent on Washington and spend at least a little more in its own defense.Few in Europe, though, want to permanently damage ties with the Americans and NATO.“Italy wants a stronger Europe, OK, but in NATO — we’re not on the French page on that,” said Marta Dassu, a former Italian deputy foreign minister and director of European affairs at the Aspen Institute.Troops from a European tank battalion that consists of Dutch and German soldiers.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesMario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, whose voice is respected in Brussels, believes strongly in the trans-Atlantic relationship, she said, adding: “We’re closer to Germany than to France, but without all the ambiguities on Russia and China.’’France also wants to become more assertive using the economic and financial tools Europe already has, especially trade and technology, the officials say. The point, they say, is not to push too hard too fast, but to raise the European game vis-à-vis China and the United States, and try to encourage a culture that is comfortable with power.But France’s German partners will themselves be going through a period of uncertainty and transition. A new German chancellor is expected to win only a quarter of the vote, and may need to negotiate a coalition agreement among three different political parties. That is expected to take at least until Christmas, if not longer.The new chancellor will also need to get up to speed on European issues, which barely surfaced in the campaign, and build credibility as the newcomer among 26 other leaders.“So it’s important now to start thinking of concrete French-German wins during a French presidency that Macron can use in a positive way in his campaign,” Ms. Schwarzer said. “Because Berlin does not want to ponder a scenario in which Macron loses” to the far-right Marine Le Pen or in which Euro-skeptics like Matteo Salvini take over in Italy.Whoever wins, German policy toward Europe will remain roughly the same from a country deeply committed to E.U. ideals, cautious and wanting to preserve stability and unity. The real question is whether any European leader can be the cohesive force Ms. Merkel was — and if not, what it will mean for the continent’s future.“Merkel herself was important in keeping the E.U. together,” said Ulrich Speck of the German Marshall Fund. “She kept in mind the interests of so many in Europe, especially Central Europe but also Italy, so that everyone could be kept on board.’’Ms. Merkel saw the European Union as the core of her policy, said a senior European official, who called her the guardian of true E.U. values, willing to bend to keep the bloc together, as evidenced by her support for collective debt, previously a German red line, to fund the coronavirus recovery fund.“Merkel acted as mediator when there have been a lot of centrifugal forces weakening Europe,’’ said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, head of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “It’s less clear how the next chancellor will position himself or herself and Germany.’’Still, Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that “whoever is the chancellor, Germany is still responsible for more than half of Chinese trade with Europe.’’ Germany is “vastly more important than the other countries on all the big issues, from how to handle China to the tech wars and climate change,’’ he said.President Xi Jinping of China, upper left, and European leaders discussing an investment deal last year.Pool photo by Johanna GeronThat means Mr. Macron “knows he has to channel German power behind his vision,’’ he said.But French and Italian positions will be crucial, too, on important pending financial issues, like fiscal and banking integration, trying to complete the single market and monitoring the pandemic recovery fund.Ms. Merkel’s departure may provide an opportunity for the kinds of change Mr. Macron desires, even if in vastly scaled-down version. Ms. Merkel’s love of the status quo, some analysts argue, was anachronistic at a time when Europe faces so many challenges.Perhaps most important is the looming debate about whether to alter Europe’s spending rules, which in practical terms means getting agreement from countries to spend more on everything from defense to climate.The real problem is that fundamental change would require a treaty change, said Guntram Wolff, director of Bruegel, a Brussels research institution. “You can’t have fiscal and defense integration by stealth,’’ he said. “It won’t have legitimacy and won’t be accepted by citizens.’’But the German election debates ignored these broad issues, he said.“The sad news,” Mr. Wolff said, “is that none of the three chancellor candidates campaigned on any of this, so my baseline expectation is continued muddling forward.” More

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      From TV to the French Presidency? Éric Zemmour Eyes Trump's Path

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      Éric Zemmour, a writer and TV celebrity known for his far-right nationalism, dominates political talk in France as he weighs a run for president.PARIS — France’s election season began in force this week, with candidates for the presidency launching their bids or holding campaign-style events. But the person who stole the show was not a candidate, or even a politician, but a right-wing writer and TV star channeling Donald J. Trump.Éric Zemmour became one of France’s top TV celebrities through his punditry on CNews, a Fox News-like channel, even as he was sanctioned twice for inciting racial hatred. This week he dominated news-media coverage in the kickoff to elections next April.A poll released Wednesday shows him rising among potential voters, beating out declared candidates like the mayor of Paris. While his share would appear to put the presidency out of reach, he could disrupt the long-anticipated scenario of a duel between President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally.In a well-orchestrated blitz that blurred the lines between media and politics, Mr. Zemmour, 63, one of France’s best-selling writers, released a new book Thursday titled “France Has Not Said Its Last Word Yet,” with a cover showing him standing with arms crossed in front of the French flag.In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Zemmour said that the cover had been modeled after Mr. Trump’s “Great Again,” the 2015 book that outlined his political agenda ahead of his election victory the following year, and that showed Mr. Trump in front of the American flag.The cover, Mr. Zemmour said, was not the only way Mr. Trump had inspired him. While Mr. Zemmour coyly deflected longstanding rumors of a possible candidacy, this month he has sent stronger signals that he may follow Mr. Trump in a leap from television to politics.“Obviously, there are common points,” Mr. Zemmour said. “In other words, someone who is completely from outside the party system, who never had a political career and who, furthermore, understood that the major concerns of the working class are immigration and trade.”In France’s two-round presidential election, the two top vote-getters in the first round meet in a runoff. Mr. Macron has aggressively courted the traditional, more moderate right in a strategy to produce a final showdown with Ms. Le Pen, whom he beat in 2017. But the presence of Mr. Zemmour, with his appeal across the right side of France’s political spectrum, could upset that calculus.Supporters of Mr. Zemmour have put up posters all over France, like these in Paris, urging him to run for president.Olivier Morin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“French politics has become totally unpredictable,” said Nicolas Lebourg, a political scientist specializing in the right and far-right.“In this extremely fluid context, things could end with the election of a Republican president after Macron is defeated because Zemmour picks up a few points,” Mr. Lebourg added, referring to the Republicans, the party of the traditional right.The poll released Wednesday showed 10 percent of voters supporting Mr. Zemmour in the first round of the election, up from 7 percent a week earlier and 5 percent in July. He is one of the few candidates registering in the double digits, outscoring some from France’s established parties, including the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.According to a poll published on Monday, Mr. Zemmour is one of the few candidates to draw support from both the French traditional right and far-right — a point he underscored in the interview, saying that the far-right National Rally “puts off the French bourgeoisie,” while the Republicans “have only an extremely aging constituency and don’t connect with the young or the working class.”The poll also showed he is strong with the working class, men and young voters.“His straight talk appeals a lot to a generation that has been very disappointed by politicians’ lies and that is very mistrustful of the media,” said François de Voyer, a host and financial supporter of Black Book, a seven-month-old YouTube channel that has featured long interviews with Mr. Zemmour and other personalities, mostly from the right and far right. He said Mr. Zemmour gives the impression of “never hiding what he thinks, even if it means making controversial remarks,” adding, “I think it has the effect of creating trust.”Still, a run by Mr. Zemmour — whose hard-line views on immigration, Islam’s place in France and national identity are regarded as being to the right of Ms. Le Pen — would immediately inject into the election some of the most explosive issues in an increasingly polarized society.The Grand Mosque of Paris. Mr. Zemmour has said that Islam doesn’t share France’s core values. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesA longtime journalist for the conservative daily Le Figaro, Mr. Zemmour became a best-selling author in the past decade with books that described a France in decline, under threat from what he claimed was an Islam that doesn’t share France’s core values. His celebrity and influence rose to another level after he became the star of CNews in 2019, where, each evening in prime time, he expounded on his ideas to hundreds of thousands of viewers.He has portrayed himself as a truth-teller in a news media dominated by politically correct, left-leaning journalists. He has railed against the immigration of Muslim Africans, invoking the existential threat of a great replacement — a loaded term that even Ms. Le Pen has avoided — that will overwhelm France’s more established white and Christian population.Over the weekend, Mr. Zemmour said that, if he were president, he would ban “non-French” first names like Mohammed and Kevin, because they created obstacles to an assimilation process that used to turn immigrants into what he considered real French people.These kinds of comments have occasionally drawn the attention of French authorities. In May, the government broadcast regulator fined CNews 200,000 euros, about $236,000, for speech inciting racial hatred. On his show in September 2020, Mr. Zemmour had said that unaccompanied foreign minors should be expelled from France, calling them “thieves,” “killers” and “rapists.”Some presidential candidates from the Republicans dismissed Mr. Zemmour’s challenge. Xavier Bertrand, the leader of a region in northern France, said that Mr. Zemmour was a “great divider.” Valérie Pécresse, the head of the Paris region, said that he offered “no genuine proposals.”Mr. Lebourg, the political scientist, said that Mr. Zemmour’s “ethnic nationalism” was rooted in the ideology of the National Front of the 1990s, the predecessor to the National Rally that was led by Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. More than any other individual, Mr. Zemmour succeeded over the years in imposing his vision on politicians in the traditional right, Mr. Lebourg said.Supporters say that is why Mr. Zemmour is the only candidate who can appeal to both the traditional right and far right.Mr. Zemmour signing copies of his book “The French Suicide” in 2015.Sebastien Salom-Gomis/Sipa, via Associated Press“Éric Zemmour opened the eyes of a certain number of people, including in my political family,” said Antoine Diers, a spokesman for Friends of Éric Zemmour, a group that is raising funds for a potential presidential bid. Mr. Diers is also a member of the Republicans and an official at the city hall of Plessis-Robinson, a suburb south of Paris.Because of Mr. Zemmour’s influence, Mr. Diers said, candidates of his party “finally take positions on immigration, on questions of identity and French culture.”Arno Humbert, another member of Friends of Éric Zemmour, said he left Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally in June after more than a decade, disillusioned by her efforts to widen her appeal by toning down her party’s positions in a strategy of “de-demonizing.”Mr. Zemmour was forced off the air on Monday after the government regulator ordered a limit on his broadcast time because he could be considered a player in national politics. He and his supporters were quick to cry censorship.Asked whether the decision would ultimately help him by burnishing his image as a truth teller among his supporters, he said, “Of course.”“It was a blessing in disguise,” he said.Léontine Gallois More

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      Macron and Le Pen Parties Both Battered in French Regional Elections

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      The returns suggest the presidential election next year may be more wide open than it seemed.PARIS — It had seemed inevitable: another face-off in next year’s French presidential election between President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the rightist, anti-immigrant National Rally Party.But after nationwide regional elections on Sunday, a rerun of the second round of the 2017 election appeared far less certain as both Mr. Macron’s centrist party, La République en Marche, and Ms. Le Pen’s party failed to win a single one of France’s 13 mainland regions.The defeat was particularly crushing for Ms. Le Pen. She had portrayed the regional elections as a bellwether of her rise to power.In the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the one region where the National Rally led in the first round of voting a week ago, a center-right candidate, Renaud Muselier, defeated the National Rally candidate by a comfortable margin, taking about 57 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results.The National Rally has never governed a French region, and on Sunday, Ms. Le Pen accused every other party of forming “unnatural alliances” and “doing everything to prevent us from showing the French people our capacity to run a regional executive.”Marine Le Pen casting her vote.Michel Spingler/Associated PressStanislas Guerini, the director general of Mr. Macron’s party, said the results were “a disappointment for the presidential majority.”They were also no surprise.Since cobbling together his party as the vehicle for his ascent in 2017, Mr. Macron has shown little interest in its fortunes, relying instead on his personal authority and the aura of the presidency. The party, often known simply as En Marche, has never managed to establish itself on the regional or local level, despite controlling Parliament.Turnout for the election was very low. Only about 33 percent of French people voted, compared with 55.6 percent as recently as 2015, a clear sign of disgruntlement with politics as usual and weariness after the country’s long battle with the coronavirus pandemic.This low participation, and the fact the presidential election is still 10 months away, makes extrapolating from the regional results hazardous. Still, it marked a shift. A headline in the left-wing Libération newspaper above an image of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen said: “2022: What if it wasn’t them?”President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, voting on Sunday.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinIf it is not them, it could be Xavier Bertrand, a center-right presidential candidate who emerged as the chief winner today.A no-nonsense former insurance agent in the northern town of Saint-Quentin, Mr. Bertrand, who has already announced he will run for president next year, won the Hauts-de-France region handily, with about 53 percent of the vote.His victory came despite strenuous efforts by Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen to make an impression in the region, which is Mr. Bertrand’s stronghold.“This result gives me the force to go out and meet all French people,” Mr. Bertrand said. “There is one necessary condition for the recovery of our country: the re-establishment of order and respect.”Mr. Bertrand, who served as health and then labor minister in the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, did not go to one of France’s elite schools and likes to portray himself as a man of the people sensitive to the concerns of the French working class. He is widely seen as an effective politician of consuming ambition. Another former minister in the Sarkozy government, Rachida Dati, once said of Mr. Bertrand: “He is the one with the most hunger.”Xavier Bertrand could capitalize on weak showings by both Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen. Pascal Rossignol/ReutersAlthough he left the main center-right party, Les Républicains, a few years ago, Mr. Bertrand remains part of their conservative family and has a visceral hatred for Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally, which he insists on calling by its former name, the National Front.In a sense the election marked the revival of traditional parties: Les Républicains on the right and the Socialists on the left. Left-wing coalitions, usually including the Socialists, hung onto power in five regions they already governed.Security has emerged as a primary concern of French people ahead of next year’s election, after a series of Islamist terrorist attacks over the past nine months. This has posed difficulties for a fragmented French left, which has appeared to have few answers to security concerns and no presidential candidate it can unite around. But the regional elections suggested it is far too early to dismiss the left entirely.For Mr. Macron, who has embarked on a nationwide tour to reconnect with the French people after the worst of the pandemic, the results suggest that his recent focus on winning right-wing votes that might have gone to Ms. Le Pen may need to be reconsidered.The presidential election is more wide open than it looked. The French people are more disgruntled than they appeared. More of the same — and a 2022 contest between Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen would be just that — may not be what they are looking for after all.Aurelien Breeden and Daphné Anglès contributed reporting. More

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      In a Charged Environment, France Tackles Its Model of Secularism

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      In an effort to fend off a challenge from the right, President Emmanuel Macron tries to frame a debate on two issues important to conservatives: the country’s “laïcité” model of secularism, and crime.PARIS — The French government on Tuesday initiated a wide-ranging public debate on France’s model of secularism, seeking to gain the upper hand on a contentious topic that has roiled the nation in recent months and is likely to be a battleground in a presidential election next year.Marlène Schiappa, the minister of citizenship, assembled a small group of intellectuals at a gathering in Paris, kicking off what is expected to be a monthslong series of discussions that she described as the “Estates-General on laïcité’’ — referring to the historic assemblies held in France to debate the fundamentals of French society.Known as laïcité, the French secularism separating church and state has served as the bedrock of the country’s political system for more than a century.“In every country, there are words that are important, that can’t be overlooked,’’ Ms. Schiappa said, describing laïcité as an idea in which “French destiny is found.’’The debate, which Ms. Schiappa announced to a French newspaper over the weekend, caught many by surprise because of its timing and its intentions. It is starting just as lawmakers are wrapping up work on a bill that is intended to reinforce the country’s principles of secularism and to combat Islamism.Led by Ms. Schiappa — a high-profile minister who has espoused a strict view on secularism — the debate comes as President Emmanuel Macron tries to fend off an increasing threat from the right and far right ahead of next year’s presidential election.As Mr. Macron tries to burnish his credentials as a defender of a strict vision of laïcité, he has also moved to seize another issue important to right-wing voters: crime.Following months of attention on the government’s stumbling coronavirus vaccination campaign, Mr. Macron pledged on Monday to be tough on crime, to crack down on recreational drugs and to recruit 10,000 additional police officers by the end of his current five-year term. The promises were made in a long, tough-talking interview he gave to a conservative newspaper, Le Figaro, that another publication described as reminiscent of Rudolph Giuliani, the combative former mayor of New York.On Monday, Mr. Macron visited drug-dealing spots in the southern city of Montpellier, talking to police officers and riding along inside a police car. Even as Ms. Schiappa inaugurated the debate on secularism, Mr. Macron’s prime minister and justice minister visited a prison under construction in eastern France to announce details of the government’s expansion of the prison system.French people across the political spectrum adhere to the concepts of laïcité, which was enshrined in law in 1905. But there have been profound disagreements on how to apply the law, especially since the emergence in recent decades of Islam as France’s second-biggest religion after Roman Catholicism.While Mr. Macron expressed a liberal view toward secularism at the beginning of his term, he has gradually moved closer to supporters of a strict vision of laïcité.A mosque in Ivry-sur-Seine, near Paris,  in October. Islam has become France’s second-biggest religion.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesThe government recently announced the dissolution of the Laïcité Observatory, a government watchdog that supporters of a strict laïcité long criticized as being soft. The government’s bill against Islamism also intends to enforce the country’s principles of secularism by gaining greater control over Muslim and other religious organizations, and by restricting home and private schooling.Appearing inside a church that had been converted into a government building, Ms. Schiappa spoke about the need for a “calm’’ discussion on laïcité. But the heated nature of the debate could be seen as some of the six invited intellectuals — four in favor of a strict laïcité and two against — took barely concealed swipes at one another.Conservative intellectuals said that laïcité was a universalist principle and a useful tool to fight against Islamism and an identity-driven fragmentation of society.Raphaël Enthoven, a philosopher, criticized those who, in the name of tolerance toward religions, favor a liberal version of laïcité, saying it plays into the hands of Islamists. “Laïcité is the object of prosecution and despicable propaganda which consists in presenting it almost as racism,” Mr. Enthoven said.Philippe Gaudin, also a philosopher, said that a discussion on laïcité should take into account a changing world in which more people, including the young, hold religious beliefs. “If we don’t want to understand the world in which we find ourselves, we won’t be able to explain our political choices, especially on laïcité,’’ he said.Ms. Schiappa said that through July, groups throughout the country would work on the link between laïcité and issues such as freedom of speech and women’s rights. Some 50,000 young people will be asked how laïcité affects their daily lives on an online platform launched Tuesday.Even before Tuesday’s gathering, some experts and organizations were dismissing the debate as a publicity stunt.Marlène Schiappa, the minister of citizenship, in Paris on Tuesday. Ms. Schiappa described laïcité as an idea in which “French destiny is found.’’Pool photo by Bertrand GuayPatrick Weil, a historian and expert on laïcité who teaches at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris and at Yale, said that, in the past, big public debates called “Estates-General’’ preceded the work of lawmakers so as to inform the discussion.“Estates-General have a long history in France — one preceded the Revolution,’’ Mr. Weil said in an interview. “They have a lot of power. But here, it’s the opposite. It’s very strange.’’Others were even more critical, accusing Mr. Macron’s government of political theater in an effort to woo the right.Responding to Ms. Schiappa’s invitation to participate in the debate, Frédéric Sève, the national secretary of one of France’s biggest unions, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, said it was a bad idea to initiate these discussions while the separatism bill had yet to become law.“We must stop making laïcité a permanent object of media agitation,’’ he said in a tweet.Mr. Macron’s two-pronged efforts on laïcité and crime this week come as polls show him neck-and-neck with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally, in next year’s presidential election. With voters moving to the right and France’s left-leaning parties in shambles, Mr. Macron’s electoral strategy rests on winning over right-leaning voters who might be tempted to migrate to the extreme right.Polls show that while support for Macron has remained steady overall, he has lost support among right-wing voters over the past four months. While 48 percent of conservative voters and 20 percent of far-right supporters said they were satisfied with him in December, according to an IFOP study, that proportion fell to 30 percent and 13 percent in April, according to the same polling firm.Mr. Macron has also been under pressure from the right-controlled Senate, which last week passed a toughened version of his bill against Islamism, adding a series of amendments that critics said risked discriminating against Muslims.Many of the new measures stem from debates over the wearing of the Muslim veil. They include a ban on ostentatious religious symbols or clothing for minors in the public space and in sport tournaments, as well as for parents accompanying children on school outings. They also enable local authorities to ban the full-body swimsuit that some Muslim women wear at swimming pools and empower mayors to ban foreign flags in and around city hall buildings during wedding celebrations.The bill, which was approved earlier by the National Assembly, will now be examined by a cross-party parliamentary commission. If the commission fails to come to an agreement, the National Assembly, which is controlled by Mr. Macron’s party, will have the final say. The Constitutional Council could also revoke some of the new measures. More

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      The Unlikely Issue Upending France: Meatless School Lunches

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      The Green party mayor of Lyon, a gastronomic capital, introduced no-meat menus in schools. Let the anguish begin.LYON — Grégory Doucet, the mild-mannered Green party mayor of Lyon, hardly seems a revolutionary. But he has upended France by announcing last month that elementary school lunch menus for 29,000 Lyonnais children would no longer include meat.An outrage! An ecological diktat that could signal the end of French gastronomy, even French culture! Ministers in President Emmanuel Macron’s government clashed. If Lyon, the city of beef snouts and pigs’ ears, of saucisson and kidneys, could do such a thing, the apocalypse was surely imminent.“The reaction has been quite astonishing,” Mr. Doucet, 47, said.He is a slight man whose mischievous mien and goatee gives him the air of one of Dumas’s three musketeers. A political neophyte elected last year, he clearly finds it a little ludicrous that he, an apostle of less, should end up with more, sitting beneath a 25-foot ceiling in a cavernous mayor’s office adorned with brocade and busts of his forbears. That tweaking a local school menu has split the nation leaves him incredulous.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” he insisted, eyes twinkling — a means to speed up lunches in socially distanced times by offering a single menu rather than the traditional choice of two dishes.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” said the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNot so, thundered Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister. He tweeted that dropping meat was an “unacceptable insult to French farmers and butchers” that betrays “an elitist and moralist” attitude. Julien Denormandie, the agriculture minister, called the mayor’s embrace of the meatless lunch “shameful from a social point of view” and “aberrational from a nutritional point of view.”All of which prompted Barbara Pompili, the minister of ecological transition, to speak of the “prehistoric” views, full of “hackneyed clichés,” of these men, in effect calling two of her cabinet colleagues Neanderthals.This heated exchange over little illustrated several things. Mr. Macron’s government and party, La République en Marche, remain an uneasy marriage of right and left. The rising popularity of the Greens, who run not only Lyon but also Bordeaux and Grenoble, has sharpened a cultural clash between urban environmental crusaders and the defenders of French tradition in the countryside.Not least, nothing gets the French quite as dyspeptic as disagreement over food.The mayor, it must be said, made his move in a city with an intense gastronomic tradition. At the Boucherie François on the banks of the Rhône, a centennial establishment, Lyon’s culture of meat is on ample display. The veal liver and kidneys glistened; cuts of roast beef wrapped in pork fat abounded; the heads of yellow and white chickens lolled on a counter; the saucissons, some with pistachio, took every cylindrical form; the pastry-wrapped pâté showed off a core of foie gras; and pigs’ trotters and ears betrayed this city’s carnivorous inclinations.“The mayor made a mistake,” said François Teixeira, a butcher who has worked at François for 19 years. “This is not good for Lyon’s image.”François Teixeira at his butcher shop in Lyon. “The mayor made a mistake,” he said.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesCertainly, the mayor’s decision came at a sensitive moment. The right in France has expressed indignation that the country is being force-marched, through politically correct environmental dogmatism, toward a future of bicycles, electric cars, veganism, locavores, negative planet-saving growth and general joylessness — something at a very far cry from stuffing goose livers for personal delectation.Last year, Pierre Hurmic, the Green party mayor of Bordeaux, touched a nerve when he rejected the city’s traditional Christmas tree because it’s “a dead tree.” Mr. Doucet’s culinary move was part of “an ideological agenda,” the right-wing weekly Valeurs Actuelles proclaimed in a cover story. “The canteens of Lyon were just a pretext.”Mr. Doucet, who describes himself as a “flexitarian,” or someone who favors vegetables but also eats a little meat, argues that the Education Ministry forced his hand. By doubling social distancing at schools to two meters, or more than six feet, it obliged the mayor to accelerate lunch by offering just one dish.“There’s a mathematical equation,” he said. “You have the same number of tables, but you have to put fewer children at them, and you can’t start the lunch break at 10 a.m.”But why nix meat? The mayor, who has a 7-year-old in elementary school, rolled his eyes. “We have not gone to a vegetarian menu! Every day, the children can eat fish or eggs.” Because a significant number of students already did not eat meat, he said, “we just took the lowest common denominator.”It was not, Mr. Doucet said, an ideological decision, even if he aims over his six-year term to adjust school menus toward “a greater share of vegetable proteins.”The mayor continued: “Most of the time these days there’s not much choice. You don’t have the choice to go to a museum, or to the theater, or to the cinema. It’s indecent for the right-wing opposition to say that I am trampling on our liberties in the context of a state of emergency.”A portrait of Paul Bocuse, one of France’s most celebrated chefs, in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron has adopted a balancing act between his embrace of a Green future and, as he put it last year, his rejection of “the Amish model” for France. The president tries to differentiate rational from punitive or extreme environmentalism.The president, casting his net wide as usual ahead of regional elections in June, wants to appeal to conservative farmers while attracting some of the Green vote. During a recent visit to a farm, he attacked attempts to forge a new agriculture based on “invective, bans and demagoguery.” In an apparent allusion to the Lyon fiasco, he has said “good sense” should prevail in balanced children’s diets and noted that, “We lose a lot of time in idiotic divisions.”His government has proposed a Constitutional amendment, the first since 2008, that, if approved in a referendum, would add a sentence to the effect that France “guarantees the preservation of the environment and biological diversity and fights against climate change.”The right has expressed opposition to the change. It still has to be reviewed by the right-leaning Senate. Another bill sets out possible reforms for a greener future that include banning advertisements for fossil fuels and eliminating some short-haul domestic flights.Mr. Doucet is unimpressed. “Macron is not an ecologist. He is a modern conservative. He knows there’s a problem, so he is ready to make some changes, but he does not measure the size of the problem. Can you tell me one strong step he has taken?”For now, the meatless Lyon school lunches are still being served. Children seem just fine. Last week, a Lyon administrative court rejected an attempt by some parents, agricultural unions and local conservative politicians to overturn the mayor’s decision, ruling that the “temporary simplification” of school menus did not pose a health risk to children.Mr. Doucet says that when the health crisis eases, but not before, he will be able to offer a choice of school menus again, including meat. Meanwhile, Mr. Denormandie, the agriculture minister, has asked the prefect in the Lyon area to look into the legality of dropping meat.Eggs and fish are still being served in school canteens in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Mr. Denormandie’s accusation that we are antisocial is a lie,” Mr. Doucet told me. “He said we were denying meat to the poorest people with the most precarious existences, which is false. He should have been fired at once.”Boris Charetiers, a member of a parents’ association, said the mayor was being closely watched. “We are vigilant,” he said. “We don’t want this to be a definitive decision. Our children cannot be hostages to ecological political conviction.”As for Mr. Teixeira, the butcher, he cast his eye appreciatively over the vast selection of meat. “We have canine teeth for a reason,” he said.Gaëlle Fournier contributed reporting from Paris. More

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      Francia está dispuesta a salvar el planeta. Pero no a costa de la carne

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      El alcalde de Lyon, una capital del mundo gastronómico, decidió introducir un menú sin carne en las escuelas. Y así empezó un debate acalorado en el país.LYON, Francia — Grégory Doucet, el afable alcalde de Lyon y miembro del Partido Verde, no parece un revolucionario. Pero ha puesto patas arriba a Francia al anunciar el mes pasado que los menús de las escuelas primarias para 29.000 niños lioneses ya no incluirán carne.¡Un escándalo! Un decreto ecológico que podría marcar el fin de la gastronomía francesa, ¡incluso de la cultura francesa! Los ministros del gobierno del presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, se enfrentaron. Si Lyon, la ciudad del hocico de ternera y las orejas de cerdo, del saucisson y los riñones, podía hacer algo así, el apocalipsis era sin duda inminente.“La reacción ha sido bastante sorprendente”, dijo Doucet, de 47 años.Es un hombre delgado, con un aire pícaro y una barba de chivo que le da el aspecto de uno de los tres mosqueteros de Dumas. Como neófito político elegido el año pasado, está claro que le parece un poco ridículo que él, un apóstol de lo menos, acabe teniendo más, sentado bajo un techo de siete metros en una cavernosa oficina de alcalde adornada con brocados y bustos de sus predecesores. El hecho de que la modificación de un menú escolar local haya dividido a la nación lo deja incrédulo.“Mi decisión fue puramente pragmática”, insistió, con los ojos brillantes: un medio para agilizar los almuerzos en tiempos de distanciamiento social ofreciendo un único menú en lugar de la tradicional elección de dos platillos.“Mi decisión fue puramente pragmática”, dijo el alcalde de Lyon, Grégory Doucet.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesNo es así, bramó Gérald Darmanin, el ministro del Interior. Tuiteó que la eliminación de la carne era un “insulto inaceptable a los agricultores y carniceros franceses” que delata una actitud “elitista y moralista”. Julien Denormandie, el ministro de Agricultura, calificó de “vergonzoso desde el punto de vista social” y “aberrante desde el punto de vista nutricional” la adopción del alcalde del almuerzo sin carne.Todo ello llevó a Barbara Pompili, ministra de Transición Ecológica, a hablar de los puntos de vista “prehistóricos”, llenos de “clichés trillados”, de estos hombres, llamando neandertales a dos de sus colegas de gabinete.Esta discusión acalorada por poco ilustra varias cosas. El gobierno y el partido de Macron, La République en Marche, siguen siendo un matrimonio incómodo de derecha e izquierda. La creciente popularidad de los Verdes, que dirigen no solo Lyon sino también Burdeos y Grenoble, ha agudizado un choque cultural entre los cruzados ecologistas urbanos y los defensores de la tradición francesa en el campo.Y no hay nada que ponga a los franceses tan malhumorados como el desacuerdo sobre la comida.Hay que decir que el alcalde hizo su jugada en una ciudad con una intensa tradición gastronómica. En la Boucherie François, a orillas del Ródano, un establecimiento centenario, la cultura lionesa de la carne está muy presente. El hígado y los riñones de ternera brillan; abundan los cortes de ternera asada envueltos en grasa de cerdo; las cabezas de pollos amarillos y blancos reposan sobre un mostrador; los saucissons, algunos con pistacho, adoptan todas las formas cilíndricas; el paté envuelto en hojaldre luce un núcleo de foie gras; y las manitas y orejas de cerdo delatan las inclinaciones carnívoras de esta ciudad.“El alcalde se equivocó”, afirma François Teixeira, carnicero que trabaja en François desde hace 19 años. “Esto no es bueno para la imagen de Lyon”.François Teixeira en su carnicería en Lyon. “El alcalde se equivocó”; dijo.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesCiertamente, la decisión del alcalde llega en un momento delicado. La derecha francesa ha expresado su indignación por el hecho de que el país esté siendo conducido a la fuerza, a través de un dogmatismo medioambiental políticamente correcto, hacia un futuro de bicicletas, autos eléctricos, veganismo, localívoros, crecimiento negativo para salvar al planeta y falta de alegría en general, algo que está muy lejos de rellenar hígados de ganso para deleite personal.El año pasado, Pierre Hurmic, alcalde de Burdeos por el Partido Verde, tocó una fibra sensible cuando rechazó el tradicional árbol de Navidad de la ciudad porque es “un árbol muerto”. La medida culinaria de Doucet formaba parte de “una agenda ideológica”, proclamaba el semanario de derecha Valeurs Actuelles en un artículo de portada. “Los comedores escolares de Lyon eran solo un pretexto”.Doucet, quien se describe a sí mismo como “flexitariano”, es decir, alguien que prefiere las verduras, pero que también come un poco de carne, sostiene que el Ministerio de Educación lo obligó a hacerlo. Al duplicar el distanciamiento social en las escuelas a dos metros, o más de dos metros, obligó al alcalde a acelerar el almuerzo ofreciendo un solo plato.“Es una ecuación matemática”, dijo. “Tienes el mismo número de mesas, pero tienes que poner menos niños en ellas, y no puedes empezar la pausa del almuerzo a las 10 a. m.”.Pero ¿por qué suprimir la carne? El alcalde, que tiene un hijo de siete años en la escuela primaria, puso los ojos en blanco. “¡No hemos pasado a un menú vegetariano! Todos los días, los niños pueden comer pescado o huevos”. Como un número importante de alumnos ya no comía carne, dijo, “simplemente tomamos el mínimo común denominador”.No fue, dijo Doucet, una decisión ideológica, aunque su objetivo a lo largo de su mandato sea ajustar los menús escolares hacia “una mayor proporción de proteínas vegetales”.El alcalde continuó: “Hoy en día, la mayoría de las veces no hay muchas opciones. No tienes la opción de ir a un museo, o al teatro, o al cine. Es indecente que la oposición de derecha diga que estoy pisoteando nuestras libertades en el contexto de un estado de emergencia”.Un retrato en Lyon de Paul Bocuse, uno de los chefs más reconocidos de Francia.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesMacron ha adoptado un acto de equilibrio entre su abrazo a un futuro verde y, como dijo el año pasado, su rechazo al “modelo Amish” para Francia. El presidente trata de diferenciar el ecologismo racional del punitivo o extremo.El presidente, que como es habitual tiende una red muy amplia de cara a las elecciones regionales de junio, quiere atraer a los agricultores conservadores y a la vez a una parte del voto verde. Durante una reciente visita a una granja, atacó los intentos de forjar una nueva agricultura basada en “invectivas, prohibiciones y demagogia”. En una aparente alusión al fiasco de Lyon, dijo que el “sentido común” debe prevalecer en las dietas equilibradas de los niños y señaló que “perdemos mucho tiempo en divisiones idiotas”.Su gobierno propuso una enmienda constitucional, la primera desde 2008, que, de ser aprobada en referéndum, añadiría una frase en la que Francia “garantiza la preservación del medioambiente y la diversidad biológica y lucha contra el cambio climático”.La derecha expresó su oposición al cambio. Todavía tiene que ser revisado por el Senado, de tendencia derechista. Otro proyecto de ley establece posibles reformas para un futuro más ecológico que incluyen la prohibición de los anuncios de combustibles fósiles y la eliminación de algunos vuelos nacionales de corta distancia.Doucet no está impresionado. “Macron no es un ecologista. Es un conservador moderno. Sabe que hay un problema, así que está dispuesto a hacer algunos cambios, pero no mide el tamaño del problema. ¿Puedes decirme una medida fuerte que haya tomado?”.Por ahora, los almuerzos escolares de Lyon sin carne se siguen sirviendo. Los niños parecen estar bien. El viernes, un tribunal administrativo de Lyon rechazó un intento de algunos padres, sindicatos agrícolas y políticos conservadores locales de anular la decisión del alcalde, dictaminando que la “simplificación temporal” de los menús escolares no suponía un riesgo para la salud de los niños.Doucet afirma que cuando la crisis sanitaria remita, pero no antes, podrá volver a ofrecer una selección de menús escolares que incluya carne. Mientras tanto, Denormandie, el ministro de Agricultura, pidió al prefecto de la zona de Lyon que investigue la legalidad del abandono de la carne.En los comedores escolares de Lyon todavía se sirven huevos y pescado.Andrea Mantovani para The New York Times“La acusación de Denormandie de que somos antisociales es una mentira”, me dijo Doucet. “Dijo que negábamos la carne a las personas más pobres y con vidas más precarias, lo cual es falso. Debería haber sido despedido de inmediato”.Boris Charetiers, miembro de una asociación de padres, dijo que el alcalde estaba siendo observado atentamente. “Estamos vigilantes”, dijo. “No queremos que esta sea una decisión definitiva. Nuestros hijos no pueden ser rehenes de una convicción política ecológica”.En cuanto a Teixeira, el carnicero, dirigió la mirada con aprecio a la amplia selección de carne. “Por algo tenemos dientes caninos”, dijo.Gaëlle Fournier colaboró con el reportaje desde París.Roger Cohen es el jefe de la oficina de París del Times. Fue columnista de Opinión de 2009 a 2020. Ha trabajado para el Times durante más de 30 años y se ha sido corresponsal extranjero y editor extranjero. Criado en Sudáfrica y Gran Bretaña, es un estadounidense naturalizado. @NYTimesCohen More