Eric Zemmour’s raw attack on France’s elites is the talk of Paris
Christopher Caldwell
French readers follow the herd. They believe in prizes. When a French author wins the Goncourt or the Nobel, people rush to bookstores and send his books rocketing to the top of the bestseller lists. But today the French have other things on their minds. President François Hollande is France’s least popular leader since World War II. His poll ratings are even lower than Barack Obama’s. A gay marriage law he rushed through the National Assembly in 2013 has continued to bring enraged (and previously apolitical) protesters into the streets in 2014. Hollande’s Socialist party lost 150 cities in last spring’s municipal elections. In elections for the European parliament, which took place at about the same time, the National Front became France’s largest party. The working-class group, long tarred as fascist, took twice as many seats as the Socialists, who fell to third.