Below is another interview with the French political commentator Eric Zemmour. This one was recorded in Switzerland.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Note: The original interview was in four separate pieces, so the times shown in the transcript reflect the brief original clips.
Transcript:
| 00:04 | Good morning, Eric Zemmour. —Good morning. | |
| 00:08 | Yesterday François Hollande was pronounced Statesman of the Year. | |
| 00:12 | Is it well-deserved? | |
| 00:16 | You know, one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it; it’s a little ridiculous. | |
| 00:20 | We don’t know, by the way, what kind of club gave him this title. | |
| 00:23 | Well, all that means nothing, all that, and we are in derision. | |
| 00:28 | Statesman of the Year? | |
| 00:32 | Why not a champion of the 100-meter freestyle? | |
| 00:36 | Yeah, it’s true, it’s whatever; so fine, why not? | |
| 00:40 | If that’s making him happy at least. | |
| – – – | ||
| 00:00 | I look, and you write “Islam is incompatible with secularism, | |
| 00:04 | with democracy, with a secular republic.” | |
| 00:08 | “Islam is incompatible with France.” What do we do? Do we forbid Islam? | |
| 00:12 | It’s very simple, Islam is incompatible, I can elaborate for you: | |
| 00:16 | with secularism, because Islam never knew secularism, it doesn’t know the separation | |
| 00:20 | between the private and the public, between the state and the religion; that was my first point. | |
| 00:24 | Islam is incompatible with democracy, because it considers that all authority and power | |
| 00:28 | come from God, and democracy is, | |
| 00:32 | as you know, the people’s power, as you still know it very well in Switzerland. | |
| 00:36 | It is incompatible with the Republic, because the Republic is the independence of the nation, | |
| 00:40 | and Islam is a nation in itself. | |
| 00:44 | Because Islam isn’t only a religion; it’s our mistake. | |
| 00:48 | It’s because we think about religion in Christian terms; | |
| 00:52 | However, Islam isn’t exclusively a religion, meaning rituals and prayers… | |
| 00:56 | So should it be forbidden it in France? —Islam, let me finish! Islam is a jurisdiction, a law, | |
| 01:04 | and a nation and a civilization, that enforces | |
| 01:08 | on its believers the smallest obligations, | |
| 01:12 | for even the most insignificant elements of their lives. | |
| 01:16 | All that causes Islam to be incompatible with France, | |
| 01:20 | I would like to remind you that Islam means submission, | |
| 01:24 | and that “France” comes from “Franc” that meant “free”. You see there’s a total incompatibility. | |
| 01:28 | That is reduced by history. —Islam, it’s also peace. —I’m sorry? | |
| 01:32 | Well, yes, you are absolutely right, because, for a very long time, | |
| 01:36 | people would suggest, they would indicate to me, that in fact Islam has a double meaning. | |
| 01:40 | It’s the submission, and the peace, from the root: “salaam”, | |
| 01:44 | and in fact, I believe I have understood this double meaning, | |
| 01:49 | that there is peace in Islam only in the submission | |
| 01:53 | And by the way, it’s exactly what’s happening today. | |
| 01:57 | Islam declared war on us, because we haven’t submitted completely to Islam. | |
| – – – | ||
| 00:00 | And for you Omar Skills, Zinedine Zidane, Djamel Debbouze [soccer players] | |
| 00:04 | are less French? | |
| 00:08 | Well, it’s a question that I’m being asked all the time. The answer is very simple. | |
| 00:12 | There is, the sociologist Philippe d’Iribarne, distinguishes between | |
| 00:16 | the political body and the social body. The political body is the law, the nationality, in fact, | |
| 00:24 | for this political body, for the law for the right to nationality, | |
| 00:28 | those people that you mention are obviously also as French as me, | |
| 00:32 | there’s no difference, we are all French, because we all have French nationality. | |
| 00:36 | Now there’s the social body, what d’Iribarne calls “social body”, meaning | |
| 00:40 | how the French people, the French social body | |
| 00:44 | receives those new French. I am not originally French. | |
| 00:48 | My ancestors weren’t French. They only became French in 1870. | |
| 00:52 | So I have no pretention, I don’t pretend that my ancestors | |
| 00:56 | were there for the crusades. I’m not La Rochefoucauld’s cousin [French nobility], | |
| 01:00 | so I know what to do in order to become French. And I’m saying | |
| 01:04 | that in order to become French, my ancestors gave French first names | |
| 01:08 | to their children. And that way we were better accepted, not always easily, | |
| 01:12 | because it’s not always easy, but we were better accepted by French people. | |
| 01:16 | And what I’m saying is that those people, by giving to their children | |
| 01:20 | Zinedine, Omar and so on, you see they aren’t ostracized, ok? | |
| 01:24 | They had brilliant careers, that they owe to their qualities, but that they also owe | |
| 01:27 | to the French welcome, to the quality of French public service, right? | |
| 01:30 | So all those people aren’t martyrs, but I’m saying that, in fact, | |
| 01:37 | It’s a sign of non-affiliation with France. That’s all I’m saying. | |
| – – – | ||
| 00:00 | Let’s talk a little about Switzerland. Do you like Switzerland, Eric Zemmour? | |
| 00:04 | —I like Switzerland very much. I know it only a little, of course. You know for me Switzerland was, | |
| 00:08 | when I was a kid I used to ski in Switzerland and I discovered white chocolate. | |
| 00:12 | So you can see it’s an old story. Now, today what I like | |
| 00:16 | about Switzerland is above all her direct democracy. | |
| 00:20 | I think that with the treason of French and Western elites, | |
| 00:24 | very well diagnosed 30 years ago by an American Christopher Lasch | |
| 00:28 | in the Revolt of the Elites. I think that today we cannot count on our elites | |
| 00:32 | to defend the people. It’s because of that, by the way, that the people are rising up. | |
| 00:36 | It’s what the elites are calling — with contempt — “populism”, but it’s the only way | |
| 00:40 | that the people found to try and defend their way of life. | |
| 00:44 | And direct democracy is our last resort which can defend | |
| 00:48 | the way of life of the people. |
Brilliant.Absolutely brilliant.
News from this We: the Parquet de Paris is opening an enquiry about Zemmour. He risks another trial because he recently said (during an excellent interview with the ‘Causeur’ magazine) that instead of showing contempt for jihadists, dismissing them as morons or madmen (and thus downplaying the threat), he (and we should) instead ‘respects the fact that they are willing to die for their values, something that we aren’t capable of anymore’.
French justice is pondering if it will consider and attack this as ‘apologie du terrorisme ‘…
Thinking of putting someone like Zemmour on trial for glorifying jihadism, now, that’s totally Orwellian. And that’s contemporary France… :-/
“….they [jihadists] are willing to die for their values, something that we aren’t capable of anymore.”
It follows that they will win.
But is it a certainty that “we” are incapable of dying for our values? What happens when the French equivalents of the two very comfortable young men interviewing Zemmour become very uncomfortable? Is it a certainty that they will submit rather than risk death in defense of their values? We don’t know.
I notice he wouldn’t answer the question “Should we forbid Islam?” Yet more diagnosis but no prescription.
But he did make the crucial point that Islam has declared war on us. What should we do about that? Surely we must eventually reciprocate by declaring war on Islam, or that part of it which inspires endless warfare against those who have not submitted. Treating Islamic terrorism as a criminal matter is not working. Nor is trying to counter democratically those who use democratic rights only to undermine and destroy democracy.
Effective remedies would naturally flow from our declaring war…proscribing parts of Islamic scriptures, reintroducing treason and sedition laws (gutted in Britain by Tony Blair), internment, withdrawal of citizenship, deportation (not necessarily to the ancestral home but anywhere that can be induced to take our internal enemies), closing down offending mosques, cutting off welfare, making life generally so uncongenial for those conventionally called Islamists that they prefer to go back to Dar al Islam.
With subtlety, he does:
” Islam is a jurisdiction, a law,
01:04 and a nation and a civilization, that enforces
01:08 on its believers the smallest obligations,
01:12 for even the most insignificant elements of their lives.
01:16 All that causes Islam to be incompatible with France,”
If you can see any prescription in that you have better eyesight than I have.
So, France now means Free (fall).