Trump’s victory is a revolution for the United States and for the world and will certainly bring changes in Europe as well, Éric Zemmour said at a background discussion in the Budapest headquarters of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). For now, the second most influential leader of the French Right did not arrive in Hungary on a political visit, but he was the main speaker at the MCC’s event on Monday with the title ‘Europe in the Era of Trump: Submission or Reconquest?’ We were able to talk to him before this roundtable discussion.

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American Vice President JD Vance’s famous statement at the Munich Security Conference that Europe’s existential threat does not come from the East but from within is a true statement—the president of the Reconquête (Reconquest) party agrees to that. He also states that the threat to Europe’s existence is not Russian tanks but an internal threat that he names the so-called ‘civilization exchange’. (This terminus technicus is often used in French public life; it describes the phenomenon of one civilization taking over the place of another and how people of other cultures arrive en masse on the continent during illegal migration.)

Chances of Peace Settlement in Ukraine

At the press meeting before the Budapest conference, the French politician told Hungarian Conservative: Ukraine lost 20 per cent of its territory during the three-year-long war, and the Russians will not give these territories back—there have been many similar geostrategic-military situations in history, and they always end the same way: the stronger state does not let go of the occupied territory.

Éric Zemmour reminded us that he had already said before the war a solution was needed that would not allow Ukraine to join NATO but would allow it to preserve its territorial integrity. ‘A kind of federal status should have been given to some regions, for example, the Donbas, which is inhabited by the majority of the Russian minority; the use of the Russian language should have been allowed, flexibility would have been necessary,’ he said, adding that this idea was also included in the two Minsk ceasefire agreements. However, neither Ukraine nor Russia wanted to comply with the agreements, and the two main sponsors, France and Germany could not make the two adversaries comply with them either.

When asked by the Hungarian Conservative whether the Reconquête (Reconquest) party would support Ukraine’s EU membership, the party president answered: ‘Ukraine wants to join the EU in order to become a NATO member, but that is impossible. I think that if the Ukrainians understand this, their interest will decrease.’

Zemmour drew attention to the fact that Ukraine is a poor country; the standard of living and the performance of the economy are well below the EU average; therefore, in the case of its membership, all EU aid would go to Ukraine, and no subsidies would go to other member states.

‘I don’t think that European soldiers could maintain peace in Ukraine, as Russia would not tolerate this near its borders’

Regarding the chance of a peace settlement in Ukraine, the French right-wing politician saw no other alternative than a ceasefire agreement with the loss of territory for Ukraine. Among the long-term solutions, he saw the deployment of European peacekeepers in the territory of Ukraine as impossible. ‘I don’t think that European soldiers could maintain peace in Ukraine, as Russia would not tolerate this near its borders. Peace cannot be maintained in this way,’ Zemmour opined.

Is Europe Defenceless?

The French party leader also drew attention to the fact that the United States is still a NATO member and has not left the military organization, so the principle of NATO’s collective defence, Article 5, still applies to it. At the same time, Europe is forced to develop its forces, but not entirely in the way America likes to see it.

America demands that Europe spend more on its own defence, but Europe buys American weapons and, therefore, partly fulfils its obligations; it pays part of the American costs in this way. On the other hand, Zemmour continued, an independent European defence policy will only exist if Europe starts producing its own weapons, aeroplanes and military equipment—as long as it buys American weapons, dependence will remain.

Europe’s Internal Troubles

In this new geopolitical situation, Europe has to rethink its role, while its leading power, Germany, is busy with its internal problems, and the EU’s leadership is busy with other disputes.

‘In the process of European construction, we see a paradox emerging: the EU was created so that there would be no hegemony, no dominant leader, yet we see that people are looking for a leader in Europe,’ Éric Zemmour said, adding that the European federalists want the European Commission to lead the EU.

‘There is a kind of ideological complicity between Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron; they take advantage of every opportunity to leave the framework created by the EU treaties because the treaties do not state that the EC has competence in matters of health, defence policy or wars,’ the president of Reconquête stated.

As he claimed, the EU has always had a leader; in the 1960s and 1970s, it was France, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became Germany because it is an industrial and economic power, as well as Ursula von der Leyen and almost all her trusted colleagues were Germans.

Grandeur Française 2.0

President Macron tries to take advantage of the current new geostrategic situation and the temporary weakness of Germany by bringing France back into a leading role in Europe, and he tries to achieve this by strengthening the defence industry and the army. France wants to take a leading role in this field, and it has something to build on: France is a nuclear power.

‘Whoever protects, dominates—and the United States is currently doing this’

Éric Zemmour quoted the old Greek wisdom: whoever protects, dominates—and the United States is currently doing this; but if Europe is left alone, some other state must fill the void, and France is willing to take over this leading role in Europe.

According to the French politician, this was also General Charles de Gaulle’s plan once. He sought the status of the European leader state for France, too, but he also knew the order correctly: for this leading role, the order must first be created at home in terms of the economy, education and the development of the defence industry.

Reconquest — Is It Possible in Europe?

European directions are determined by European political forces, and several of them are fighting for dominance, including the right-wing patriots—a European party and fraction in the European Parliament with this name have been formed, but there are also two sister parties, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) Group.

The Reconquête is a member of the latter; his fraction partner in Hungary is Mi Hazánk, while Zemmour promises to be an ally of Viktor Orbán and his party, the Fidesz, which belongs to the Patriots of Europe (PfE). The contradiction can be resolved: ‘In the fraction of the Patriots, there is Marine Le Pen’s party, the National Rally (Rassemblement National), and the reason for this is that Le Pen and Viktor Orbán are friends, and also because the National Rally is an older, more dominant party, so there are also personal reasons for this,’ Zemmour explained to our paper.

‘Nevertheless, in my opinion, Viktor Orbán is closer to my ideological position than Le Pen’s. Orbán pretends not to see that there are such differences between them; for example, Le Pen voted for the right to abortion to be included in the French constitution, and she does not see a civilizational exchange; she thinks that Islam is compatible with the French constitution, and it was also Le Pen who sent the AfD away from the Patriots fraction,’ continued the right-wing party leader, who claims that the Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations often vote together in the European Parliament, as with the ECR, they are close to each other, but there are issues on which they disagree.

With the 2027 French presidential election approaching, Zemmour confirmed that he is running again as a presidential candidate, and his party’s programme is being prepared. As he said, an unprecedented situation has developed in France; instead of a two-pole political division, politics has become three divisions: the left, the right and a centrist bloc. Clashes are expected within the blocs at first—within the right bloc, Reconquête is the only one that does not ‘travel in the trunk of Le Pen’s party’ (this is a notion of Nicolas Sarkozy), but ‘cycles independently’.

The Big Headache: The Migration Pact

According to Éric Zemmour, it is a huge problem that the EU institutions support mass migration—they cite economic reasons, but they do it more for ideological reasons. The European Commission wants to make impossible the efforts of the member states that are aimed at protecting their borders; it, in fact, imposes sanctions on these member states, and it allies itself with the forces that support mass migration.

‘We are facing a civilizational problem: one civilization takes the place of another civilization—two attitudes are possible in this matter: either we submit to Islamic colonialism, or we fight against it,’ Zemmour pointed out. According to the French politician, the EU’s new push-back directive is the wrong way to go; it wants to distribute the already accepted migrants among the member states and punish the member states that do not want to participate in this method. However, the correct solution would be just the opposite: migrants arriving illegally should be sent back to the country they came from. But this effort is also limited, for example, by the jurisprudence of the Court of the European Union: it prohibits Frontex from returning them—Éric Zemmour concluded.

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