Marine Le Pen loses popularity, Macron gets a serious opponent; who is Éric Zemmour?

Political journalist, essayist, writer and television analyst ric Zemmour surpassed far-right doyen Marine Le Pen in popularity, according to public opinion polls on presidential candidates, currently presenting himself as the main challenger to incumbent President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the April elections.
Zemmour once again put the issue of immigration at the center of the campaign. In the last month, Le Pen has lost the monopoly over the radical right, which she has enjoyed since she took over the leadership of the National Front party from her father in 2011.
Zemmour, an ultranationalist with several condemnations for racist hate speech, has begun to snatch voters' favor from Le Pen since he entered her field as a more radical challenger, RFI writes. A poll published on Wednesday shocked the country, showing that Zemmour overtook Le Pen for the first time.
"Never before has any candidate experienced such growth in such a short period of time as we saw with ric Zemmour," commentator Antoine Gotti commented for RFI Harris Interactive.
Some 17-18 per cent of those polled said they would vote for Zemmour in the first round scheduled for April 10 next year, compared to seven per cent in early September. Le Pen has the support of about 15-16 percent of citizens. That result would be enough for Zemmour to enter the second round of voting, in which he will face President Emmanuel Macron, who will beat him by a margin of 55 to 45 percent.
But analysts point out that everything is still open and that the elections are far away. Zemmour himself has not yet officially announced his candidacy, but he is acting as a challenger by choosing the time to act, describing himself as a "candidate in debate", leaving a place in the debate show in...