Eric Zemmour’s Concession Speech

Zemmour gave his concession speech yesterday evening. Even as he appeared crestfallen and exhausted by a brutal campaign that turned so suddenly at the outbreak of war, he addressed his supporters with words of hope and characteristic depth and flourish. Translation follows.

My Dear Countrymen, My Dear Friends— there are more than more than two million of you who voted for me today. I want to first address you. Thank you. Thank you boundlessly for your confidence and the hope and strength you gave me tonight.

Thanks to you I can make a promise: I will continue to defend France and our ideas. And I am certain that soon we will win. I also thank you on behalf of France, because I take each one of your votes as the cry of a people who do not want to die.

The fact that two million of you supported a man from no party, who wasn’t a politician, shows that my message has been heard. This element must not be forgotten in the coming days and in the coming years. Your voice can no longer be ignored, ever.

Whatever the outcome of the second round, everyone knows that our ideas are worth more than our score today. I couldn’t convince enough of our countrymen. History will tell why we didn’t succeed, when a majority of the French share our concerns and our hopes.

Maybe because of a lack of campaigning and debates, maybe because of the treatment we were given due to the international situation, and maybe simply because of my own fault. [The crowd erupts in cries of “NO!”]

Thank you. Of course I made mistakes. I want to tell you that I accept it all. I take responsibility for everything. I owe much of my success to my team. I owe them none of my failures.

But at the end of this campaign, I am proud that I didn’t become a politician. I never lied to gain one point in the polls. I have never disguised my thoughts and I have never betrayed.

In the coming days, you will hear everyone explain what we lost. I am going to tell you what we won. I say to those millions of French, thanks to you, nothing will ever be as it was before. I ask you to remain dignified, remain strong, keep the faith.

You have been admirable in this campaign. Your vote is pioneering. It’s the vote of the future. It’s a vote of hope, because the truths that we have told France during this campaign will be essential for everyone in the coming years.

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart everyone who helped us. To my whole team, to all our activists, I say an immense thank you. Your energy, your fervor, your greatness of spirit, your generosity, your organization have made an impression on the whole of France.

I still remember May of last year, when there were ten of us. This was only an idea. We observed the blockage of French political life. We observed the deplorable state of France and the old exhausted parties.

We didn’t know what kind of welcome the French people would have for us, but we were convinced that it was our duty to stand up. I stood up.

A year later sees us finally facing the duel that has been forecast since 2017. And even so, if electorally nothing has changed, politically everything has changed. Everything has changed because we are here. We have caused an eruption in political life.

And look: we have passed the old, moribund parties. We have done in three months what no politician has been able to do in 15 years. We have built the biggest party in France.

By my side, young people rose up. These young people prohibit hopelessness, because they will not disappear. The flags that flew at the Trocadéro will never be lowered.

So, yes, we are disappointed. But we won something in this campaign that has no price: power and experience. I tell you that in Reconquête we are powerful, we are strong, we have activists throughout France, we have formidable intelligence, we have unequaled competence.

We have already launched ourselves into the future. I will not hold back, because Reconquête will not abandon anything so long as France is not reconquered.

Our line is unique and it is not represented anywhere else. We are the only ones who defend our civilization and our identity: in our culture, in our schools, in our streets, in our morals, in our vision of ecology, politics, and society.

We are the only ones who would reconcile people and elites, workers and bosses, yellow vests and ‘manif pour tous’, abstainers and politics.

I am determined to carry on the fight with everyone who is by my side, all those who will join us in the coming weeks, and I will tell you very soon the form our actions will take.

I want to tell you in conclusion, because I think of France above all, because it was the whole point of my candidacy, because I couldn’t stand by with my arms crossed at the words that hang over our country.

I have plenty of disagreements with Marine Le Pen. I addressed them in the campaign. I won’t go back through the list. But against Marine Le Pen there is a man who brought in two million immigrants.

A man who didn’t say a word about identity, security, or immigration during his campaign. And who will do worse if he is reelected. I don’t delude myself about my adversary. That is the reason I call on my electors to vote for Marine Le Pen.

There is something greater than all of us, and that is France. I know that some of my electors don’t want to vote for her. I don’t judge them, because I accept the differences at the heart of a union of the right.

Some would have liked for me to trade these words, but I am not a merchant. I don’t see politics as a negotiation of interests, but as the eruption of the human will in history.

I came forward from a feeling for France. I came forward because I think our country is in danger. I came forward because the duel that has been predicted for five years seemed to me to lead to the failure of our ideas. Today I pray to heaven that I am wrong.

Long live the Republic, and above all— yes, above all — long live France.