Invited to speak at the Cercle de Lorraine during a literary lunch on Tuesday, the French journalist and chronicler Eric Zemmour, said it was currently impossible to hold a debate comfortably. “You have been contaminated by barbaric morals”, he said to the audience, referring to the uproar surrounding his arrival in Belgium. When he arrived at the Cercle de Lorraine, on the Place Poelaert opposite the Courthouse, around a dozen militants from the Far Right group Nation were holding a banner saying “Against Islamo-Leftwing fascism”. They wanted to show their support for the journalist whose arrival in Belgium has provoked the anger of, among others, several left-wing and anti-islamophobia associations.
Eric Zemmour has criticized what he called “McCarthyism” and not censure. “There should be no inappropriateness in democracy, only debate”, the journalist said. He had just presented his latest book, “The French suicide”, which has already become a best-seller with 400,000 copies sold in bookstores, 8,000 in Belgium. “Inappropriateness is a notion imposed by the clean-thinker on those who can’t think”.
“There is no debate, as there is no rational conflict. There are only priests who preach, who give moral lessons and ex-communicate at will”, he said to the 150 people who were there to listen to him on Tuesday at midday. He then presented his 544 page book, which shows the decline of France, as he sees it, over the last 40 years.
A little later, in front of members of the Press only, he briefly referred to the cancelation of the signing session that should have taken place in a Filigranes bookstore on Tuesday afternoon. “I see it as an anti-democratic illness and not freedom”, he said. “There are many things people say that exasperate me. But that’s democracy. I don’t try and stop them speaking”.
Eric Zemmour is expected to attend a debate at the B19 Country Club in Uccle on Tuesday at 6.30pm.
(Source: Belga)
