Eric Zemmour's campaign clip dissected: 114 "borrowed" sequences and some misinterpretations

Since it was put online on Tuesday, November 30, the video in which Eric Zemmour declares himself a candidate for the presidential election has been viewed more than 2.6 million times. Sitting at his desk, the far-right polemicist unfolds his campaign arguments using numerous images taken from films, concerts or reports, supposed to support his point.

Surprised, not to say shocked, by the recovery for political purposes of their works by the former columnist sentenced twice for incitement to racial hatred, several owners and beneficiaries of the images used without their agreement have announced their intention to sue.

Agence France-Presse (AFP), several video reports of which were used without authorization, said it reserved "the possibility of initiating legal proceedings", as did Gaumont, which holds the rights to the film Jeanne d'Arc by Luc Besson broadcast in the campaign clip. France Télévisions, the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) and Radio France jointly declared: “Eric Zemmour should pay the rights to the images used like everyone else. France 24 will send a formal notice to the candidate's team to demand the removal of their images. The HuffPost (belonging to the Le Monde group), two video reports of which were used without prior agreement, "decided to initiate proceedings as soon as possible against the now candidate, in order to stop the dissemination of these images".

In all, a dozen media outlets and production companies flagged Mr. Zemmour's campaign video to YouTube. But the video platform, owned by Google, announced Thursday to AFP that it did not have "the possibility, on the basis of European law, of immediately withdrawing this video for violation of the rights of author ". YouTube claims to have asked the companies that requested it for "details that could reverse this decision". The platform, however, added an age restriction to the clip of Mr. Zemmour by prohibiting it to minors because of the violent images.

Twenty-eight seconds of films and series

The detailed analysis of the six hundred and eleven seconds of this video enabled us to identify 114 sequences whose images do not belong to the far-right candidate and to identify around forty owners.

These retakes total 39% of the time of the video. The rest is made up of images of Mr. Zemmour reading his speech, facing the camera (28%), or images shot during his meetings (33%).

Among these 114 sequences gleaned from the Web, there is one minute and thirty-five seconds of news-related images (46 sequences in all), most produced by press companies: seventeen come from France Télévisions, at least six from the INA site, at least three from the AFP video service, two from HuffPost.

More surprising for a political video, we find twenty-eight seconds (cut into fourteen sequences) directly from films or series – from Claude Sautet to Luc Besson via Jean-Luc Godard –, but also four seconds (in four sequences) of concerts, including those of Barbara and Georges Brassens, whose political convictions were the opposite of those of Mr. Zemmour.

Misinterpretations and diverted sequences

Going back to the source of these 114 "borrowed" shots, astonishing misinterpretations appear between the original context of the chosen images and the discourse that Eric Zemmour unfolds:

Find in the table below the sequences that we have identified: