(AFP) French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour on Wednesday suggested criminals in high-rise housing estates are fighting alongside jihadists in a “civilisational battle” pitting immigrants against traditional French culture.
The 63-year-old, who has often used the hundreds of people killed by jihadists in attacks in France since 2015 as political ammunition, told police officers that they were “at the forefront of a civilisational battle which has spread out over our territory.”
“There are two civilisations on our territory and they cannot co-exist peacefully … we need one civilisation to impose itself, and it’s our own one,” Zemmour told the audience at a campaign event organised by the Alliance police union at a cinema in Paris.
He suggested that there was a “continuum between everyday delinquents and jihadists.”
