Six activists supporting populist presidential candidate Eric Zemmour were doused with gasoline in the latest attack of the hotly contested French presidential election.
Following a spate of leftist attacks against Reconquête! (Reconquest!) candidate Eric Zemmour, six supporters were drenched in gasoline while draping a banner on a bridge for the populist firebrand in Linas, Esssone in Northern France.
According to a report from the French newspaper, Le Parisien, two men, aged 24 and 26, have been arrested following the incident, in which they allegedly drove up to the Zemmour supporters and sprayed them with gasoline around 7 p.m. on Friday evening.
Speaking to the paper, Stefan Milosevic, a municipal councillor in Montgeron and representative of Zemmour’s party in Essone, said: “The driver decelerated by passing in front of them and the passenger sprayed them with a large amount of gasoline. Even their underwear was soaked.”
Milosevic later told Le Figaro that the vehicle then turned around with the apparent intention of coming back towards the Zemmour supporters but fled after a municipal police vehicle luckily arrived on the scene.
“The fact that the car is coming back makes us think they wanted to set fire [to the Zemmour supporters]. When you throw away gasoline and come back, it’s because you haven’t finished the work,” he said.
A police source backed up this version of events to Le Parisien, adding that once taken into police custody the attackers pronounced that they “hate Zemmour and his ideas”.
The two men claimed they had “seen the group of people [and] gone to get a bottle of gasoline to sprinkle them, but without wanting to go further.”
While the race for the French presidency has become quite vitriolic, the local Zemmour representative said that Essonne had so far been free from serious political violence.
“This is the first time I’m afraid for activists,” Milosevic said. “Until then, we had just been threatened and insulted on the Corbeil-Essonnes market. These scenes that have become banal must stop urgently.”
From the outset of his candidacy, leftist activists have targetted the journalist-turned-presidential hopeful. At his very first campaign event, Zemmour was personally assaulted by a left-wing infiltrator of the crowd and 39 Antifa radicals were arrested, some of whom were carrying Molotov cocktails.
Earlier this month, Zemmour was attacked again, this time having an egg smashed over the top of his head by a retired farmer during a campaign stop in Moissac in South West France.
The Jewish Algerian-heritage candidate has come under intense media criticism, at home and abroad, for his supposedly far-right positions, notably his opposition to mass migration and the negative aspects of France’s lenient asylum system.
Last week, Zemmour chastised the “politico-media world” for ignoring the violent attacks on him and his supporters and called on the government to “crack down” on leftist violence.
The presidential candidate went on to call for his supporters “to be vigilant in their magnificent mobilisation throughout France.”
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