In France, Trump-like TV pundit rocks presidential campaign

By JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A rabble-rousing television pundit and author with repeated convictions for hate speech is rocking the early stages of France’s race to replace President Emmanuel Macron. Eric Zemmour is finding large and fervent audiences for his anti-Islam and anti-immigration invective. He is packing auditoriums with paying crowds and filling supporters’ heads with visions of a Trump-like leap from the small screen to the presidential palace when France votes in April. But critics include people who lost relatives to the Holocaust. They are outraged by his repeated comments that have sugarcoated wartime France’s collaboration with the extermination of French Jews.