Ira? Won't go? At the start of the 2021 school year, when all of France wondered about Éric Zemmour's candidacy for the Élysée, his adviser and partner Sarah Knafo was not the only woman to whisper in his ear. Between two trips for the promotional tour of his book, La France has not said its last word, "Z" can indeed count on the wise advice of a familiar figure on the right: Isabelle Balkany. Friend of 40 years and "big sister", the former first deputy mayor of Levallois-Perret has long discussed with him this temptation of the presidential election in private. But did she encourage him? Not totally, like other members of his bodyguard. This is what she explains to us today, without forgetting to deliver some confidences on the origins of her extraordinary link with the sulphurous candidate of "Reconquest".

Gala.fr: Can you tell us about your meeting with Éric Zemmour?

Isabelle Balkany: I met Eric as a trainee journalist. It was at Quotidien de Paris with Philippe Tesson, one of the men in my life who formed me intellectually. I met him at that time and we immediately had an intellectual crush.

What immediately appealed to you about him?

I love the man and I will always love him because he is complex. I'm not going to fall for the boat things, but he is of superior intelligence and a hallucinatory general culture. A history nut, even if he is a little monomaniac. If you want to know what time Napoleon peed in Waterloo, you ask him! And I always didn't care about him for that (laughs).

Did you still stay in touch?

For 40 years, when he and I were a journalist at the town hall of Levallois, we had a tradition: having lunch together once every two months. It's something we kept until I left the town hall by force of circumstance. We saw each other apart from Mylène (Chichportich, Éric Zemmour's wife) and my husband Patrick. He knows Patrick, I know Mylène very well. But we both had lunch and we remade the world. He called me a gaucho and I called him a reaction!

"Initially, I said to him: 'But what are you going to put yourself in there?'"

He always teases you about it?

Yes, of course! I have very strong ties with him. We communicate a lot together and now that he knows how to use a phone, it's easier because he's very busy. So we text each other several times a day. He is someone with whom I do not agree on many things he has said, that is clear! But I know the intellectual mechanism of man and why he come to say these things. He is a man who is both determined, straight in his boots, sure of his convictions, but he is also someone very anxious, worried about the future, and who always wants to do well.

It seems that you rather discouraged him from starting the race for the Élysée.

He told me about it before he started. And at the start, I said to him: "But what are you going to put yourself in there?"

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For you, he was not able to withstand the harshness of the political world?

No, but I know him and as I tell you, he has a kind of permanent metaphysical anxiety, which made me fear for him. You know, he always calls me his big sister, and to me he's my little brother.

In the end, he didn't listen to you.

It's true that at the beginning, I also had the reaction of the Jewish mother. I am a Berber Jew like him. So I was worried and I still am when I see the outpouring of hatred against him.

What really scares you?

It is this violence that is no longer just verbal. Hateful violence that I have never seen in politics. Then physical violence.

How does he respond when you tell him you're scared?

He said, "Don't worry, I'm well protected." But hey, it's not normal to see that in this country. Me, it's not France that my father sold me, in quotation marks, when he explained to me why he had come. It is not a humanist France and freedom of expression for everyone, including journalists elsewhere. The freedom to think and even say bullshit!

"I am his communicator from the heart"

In the book "Le radicalisé" (ed. Seuil) by Étienne Girard, we read that you promised him to be his pen during the campaign .

No, I didn't promise him. First, he doesn't need me, because he has a team around him. I tell him a number of things and we talk about a number of things every day.

What kind of advice do you give him?

Me, I can only be his communicator from the heart.

What do you think is his best asset?

Smart! And I would add humor. Contrary to what some believe, there are infinitely many! Very fine humor. It was still visible every night on his show with Christine Kelly. I had the opportunity to go see him on CNews when Patrick got out of prison and he introduced me to Christine Kelly by saying: "Here is Isabelle, I have already spoken to you about it, she is the only leftist that I love !" The man has not changed. He's been calling me a gaucho for 40 years.

You are supporting a candidate who is therefore not with Les Républicains.

I support it in quotes, it's not official. Nobody cares about my support! It is support from the heart. And then Les Républicains, I haven't been there for several years.

Do you still think that Éric Zemmour today embodies the RPR and the right that you have known? That's what he claims.

Yes, more than others! If you like, the RPR disappeared when the UMP was created. That is to say when the RPR made an alliance with the centrists. At the time, I already thought it was a mistake. And besides, it corresponds roughly to the moment when we decided with Patrick to no longer be an RPR / UMP office in Levallois but to become the Rassemblement pour Levallois. So we were probably among the first to feel that it was a bad initiative.

We didn't mention Sarah Knafo. What do you think of her?

I don't know her. He told me about it, but I don't know it at all.

A prediction on his score in the presidential election?

So there! Despite all my links with Madame Soleil, who is buried in Levallois and whom I helped launch on Europe 1, I cannot give you the result of an election (laughs).

Photo credits: Christophe Clovis / Bestimage