French journalist booted from TV show over anti-Muslim remarks

Prominent French journalist Eric Zemmour was back in the spotlight over the weekend after being barred by a news channel for saying Muslims were elbowing French people out of the suburbs.

The iTELE channel said late Friday that Zemmour would not be invited back to a talk show he has been appearing on since 2003 following an outcry over his latest remarks.

Zemmour, whose parents are Jewish Berbers who emigrated from Algeria in the 1950s, recently published a best-seller titled “The French Suicide,” which chronicles what Zemmour calls the gradual weakening of the French nation-state from the early 1970s until today.

Zemmour is no stranger to polemics; he has been convicted in the past of inciting racial hatred.

The latest controversy erupted in the wake of an interview to Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper in which he said “Muslims kept to themselves in the suburbs” and the “French were forced to move out.”

The interview was conducted two months ago, but Zemmour’s comments only sent French liberals up in arms after left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon, who served as France’s education minister and ran for president in 2012, translated the interview and posted it on his blog.

In his blog entry, Melenchon said Zemmour was calling for the “deportation” of French Muslims, even those who had been born in the country.

In the actual interview, the Italian journalist asked Zemmour “then what do you suggest France do? Deport five million Muslims?” Zemmour himself never used the word “deportation,” a word with a dark history in France, associated with the sending of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Second World War to death camps across Europe.

Zemmour is a well-known media commentator and columnist for Le Figaro newspaper who prides himself on his outspoken defiance of what he deems politically correct, woolly liberals.

France is home to five million Muslims, the largest population in Europe. It also has the largest Jewish diaspora on the continent.

The SNJ journalists union hailed the “strong decision” taken by the television channel, a position taken by SOS Racisme, an anti-racism watchdog.

But far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Front party, tweeted: “The ban on Zemmour is detestable.”

Louis Alliot, Le Pen’s deputy, said “I nixed iTele starting now as a source of information. I invite the democrats to do likewise.”

Zemmour, however, received backing also from politicians closer to the French mainstream: Eric Ciotti, secretary-general of UMP (the party of former and potentially future president Nicolas Sarkozy), tweeted “The kicking out of Eric Zemmour is not good news for democracy #thoughtpolice.”