Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France must ensure the safety of Eric Zemmour

A poster of Zemmour is torn in Paris (photo: Getty)

There are several similarities between Eric Zemmour and the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, and one distinct difference. The Dutchman was homosexual and an ardent campaigner for gay rights, whereas the Frenchman, who has three children, recently reaffirmed his opposition to gay marriage.

But on Islam and immigration they had much in common. Fortuyn, for example, campaigned for a reduction in the overall annual number of immigrants to Holland from 40,000 to 10,000, with not one Muslim among that figure. Zemmour wants an end to all immigration and believes that Islam ‘is not compatible with France’.

Fortuyn paid with his life for his views. He was assassinated on May 6, 2002, nine days before the Dutch parliamentary elections. It was a killing that shook Holland, its first political murder since the 17th Century, although some on the left didn’t particularly mourn the death of the flamboyant Fortuyn.

Like Zemmour his political rise was as rapid as it was unexpected. A sociology professor at the University of Rotterdam, the 54-year-old Fortuyn came to nationwide prominence through a newspaper column, warning of the dangers he believed Holland would face in the years to come from Islamic extremism. In 2001 he declared his ambition to stand for Prime Minister and in February 2002, just three months before the election, he founded his own party, Pim Fortuyn List. A month later his party astounded the Dutch political establishment by winning 17 of the 45 seats in Rotterdam’s municipal elections.

Zemmour is the new danger to the European extreme left

That is when the threats and intimidation began. He was hit with a pie by a left-wing activist a few days after that election success, and in the weeks that followed Fortuyn was heckled and jostled wherever he went. Some of the world’s media piled in – Ireland’s Sunday Independent

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