How to Manufacture an Extremist Candidacy

Step 1: Create a bunch of social media accounts and have them beg your candidate to run for president

- Ania Nussbaum, Sarah Frier, and Daniel Zuidijk

“ I am ready to carry the voice of the silent majority,” Eric Zemmour shouts at a rally in Metz, France. “They are trying to steal this election from you.”

It’s March 18, less than four weeks before polls open. Zemmour is rallying a crowd of several thousand, largely composed of White men. He glides through the audience, reaches out to touch their hands, then raises his arms in a “V” for victory as they roar with delight. His face—mostly forehead, with bushy eyebrows and a smile that curves up on the left—is instantly recognizable thanks to his long career as a TV news pundit and, more recently, his presence on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. He’s fourth in the polls, but the polls are hardly the point.

As the April 10 presidential election approaches, Zemmour and his supporters have been offering conspiratorial arguments. They say the polls, and perhaps the election itself, may be rigged—a message that will almost certainly be repeated after the votes are counted. The tactic, like so much about his surprise candidacy, is modeled on the mendacious antics of Donald Trump, who branded his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 U.S. election “Stop the Steal.”

“We love you!” a supporter spontaneously screams at the March rally. “We will win!”