«Zemmour doesn't hold a candle to many of his peers»

Letters to the editor - Michel Moret

Dear Jonas,

Your editorial on Eric Zemmour implies that our political elites are unsympathetic to the cause of ideas and literature. It's a view I don't share.

In Switzerland, I found that political figures read a lot more than I thought they would. Personally, I had a fairly extensive literary correspondence with Georges-André Chevallaz; it was he who introduced me to Giraudoux and Valéry (I knew little of the former). I know that Bernard Comby pushed and helped Adrien Pasquali to write. Jean Ziegler is a great reader. So is our councillor Cesla Amarelle. In the canton of Fribourg, there was Augustin Macheret, a fine scholar and historian. Didier Burkhalter and the surly Joseph Deiss are good readers. Pierre-Yves Maillard has just translated a great Brazilian novel published by L'Harmattan. Ruth Dreifuss has helped me make Alice Rivaz better known. There's also Grégoire Junod, Antonio Hodgers, Pierre Maudet, Pascal Corminboeuf, Géraldine Savary and Cédric Wermuth. Here in Switzerland, we don't dare flaunt our historical and literary culture. Alain Berset married a professor of literature. Madame Sommaruga shares her life with the writer Lukas Hartmann.

In France, there's Dupond-Moretti, Amélie de Montchalin (an amazing woman!), Richard Ferrand, Jean-Michel Blanquer, the Neruda nut. And Emmanuel Macron lives his life as a politician like Mitterrand in literature. It has to be said that the President gives the impression of escaping from a novel, and I think he'll pay the price. But he'll be back in five years, unless his pen takes him elsewhere. It seems that he regularly invites a man of letters to his table. In this respect, Zemmour is no more passionate than the others, but he's a good salesman. François Hollande is also a character out of a library. This man, who is nothing extraordinary, has fathered one child with the mayor of Paris and three or four with Ségolène, not to mention those we don't know. What's more, he reads. Bruno Le Maire has a very good pen. Matteo Renzi, the former mayor of Florence who presided over Italy for two or three years, knew many of Baudelaire's poems by heart, in French. Vaclav Havel was a man of rich culture. Putin's former Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, had an impressive culture. In three minutes, he could turn a situation around with breathtaking class.

I don't even think Zemmour compares to many of his peers, including Le Pen (the old man).

With friendship and consideration,

Michel Moret, Director, Editions de l'Aire

Photo credit: © Flickr CC BY 2.0