France's Éric Zemmour: 'Why is Europe so easily willing to give up our individual freedoms?'

In this RAIR exclusively translated video. Éric Zemmour is struck by how easily the French have submitted to containment measures, and the role the media has played in the “crime push” against our liberties.

French President Emmanuel Macron managed to keep his country’s borders open while simultaneously confining French citizens within the borders of their homes.

Zemmour reminds citizens that confinement as a means of limiting freedom has historical precedent and should be considered by viewers.

Americans and Europeans should consider his questions and the potential ramifications for people’s individual freedom.

Transcript: thank you to Miss Piggy for the translation.

TV Host: Hello, Eric Zemmour.

Zemmour: Hello. 

TV Host: We are using a new format due to confinement obligations, and the topic of the moment is the ease with which the French accepted the confinement measures, which are nevertheless very contrary to individual liberties. Were you surprised by the acceptance?

Zemmour: I’m very struck by the fact that all countries, not just France, display acceptance, a submission, to what is essentially the deprivation of  the most elementary freedom, that is to say: the freedom to come and go.

So, I know very well that we all give the best reasons in the world, that it’s for everyone’s health and so on. I’m not going to contradict that at all. I’m just saying that first I’m very struck by the general acceptance, even if there are exceptions, and what strikes me even more is that the media are scolding the authorities because they’re not strict enough, and are reproaching the population by saying, “but this is not confinement”, etc.

There’s a sort of “media crime spree”. I find that quite interesting in terms of collective mentalities and what it reveals.

TV Host: Then, we may note in passing that the President of the Republic may find it easier to decide to confine the French than to close the borders. —

Zemmour: There we see the ravages of the ideology. I would call it the Europeanist and no-borders policy, which even reaches into the highest authorities of the government. That is to say, he didn’t want to close the borders.

Then, he finally accepted the closing of the Schengen borders, as if Europe had a border, but not France.

This is also very revealing of the mentality. Secondly, what’s confinement other than a personal border? That is to say, we lock each other up and reinvent the original borders —

I was going to say the borders of humanity, at the dawn of humanity, meaning that each one defends himself against all. So precisely for this reason, nations were the most civilised way to discard this war of all against all. We all remember the lessons of Hobbes.

So I think it is quite striking, especially when we see it happening in all countries for the same reason. For example, in England, Boris Johnson caused a huge scandal by refusing this general confinement.

By saying that the virus had to run its course. Finally, he corrected his policy, he gave in, he submitted to this rule of general containment, on March 21, I believe.

And the only newspaper in England that didn’t defend this containment was a newspaper like the Daily Telegraph, which is from the conservative right and titled it as, which I find very beautiful, “The end of freedom”. And what’s worse is that we know that this general confinement is a measure from the Middle Ages and is only being implemented due to our shortcomings.

If we had done enough tests, if we had enough masks, if we had enough ventilators, as in South Korea, we wouldn’t need this general confinement.  You see…

TV Host: Do you think the French are more attached to equality than to freedom in the end?

Zemmour: So, that’s the old Tocquevillian thesis, which says that the French prefer equality to freedom. This is very likely, but look at England, where the classic opposition between the English and the French has been the English preference for freedom over equality. There, too, they finally gave in to the confinement and the end of freedom. So I think it’s even broader than that. —

TV Host: You seem to consider that this deprivation of liberty, which the French are experiencing, is in a way the consequence or the price to be paid for our economic outsourcing. Why is that?

Zemmour: Namely because in countries with cutting-edge of technology, such as South Korea, Taiwan, or even Israel, as you have seen, general containment measures are being replaced by targeted measures like general mass testing, which now, the WHO also recommends, a month after the battle started, and masks for everyone. Targeting, you know, tracking through geo — Geolocation.

TV Host: There, geolocalize, you found the right word: you geolocalize.

We trace everyone, based on who the infected had contact with and those who are infected have to say who they saw.

You see, these measures are much more… well, you’re going to tell me: they are also coercive measures, they are also freedom-killing measures, but I find them less so, I don’t know why, than general containment.

It at least allows us to isolate things. It is clear that European countries have fallen far behind in medical research, have also subcontracted their entire medical industry to China, whether it be masks or ventilators, all that.

We don’t make any of it anymore, almost none, and when  the Chinese obviously need it for themselves, they don’t send it to us anymore, and we are dependent like never before. So, that’s why I’m saying these containment measures are there to compensate for economic, technological and social downgrading, and ultimately endanger national independence.

TV Host: Thank you, Eric Zemmour.