Far-right French presidential candidate 'forgot to pay at grocery store'
The French TV pundit turned far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has been hit with a campaign scandal when a magazine reported that he walked out of a posh Paris grocery store without paying for his purchases.
French satirical magazine Le Canard enchaîné has reported that on Sunday, February 27th, Zemmour, accompanied by a security officer, left a Bon Marché store in the capital without paying for €38.80 worth of groceries he had scanned at an automatic checkout.
Le Canard enchaîné reported that the discrepancy in till receipts was only noticed at the end of the day, and Zemmour was identified as the non-paying customer. Contacted via his campaign office the following day, the presidential hopeful sent a security officer to cover the cost of the bill.
Zemmour tried to laugh off the incident as a one-off error.
“I simply forgot to pay,” he told Le Canard enchaîné. “I left like that. The next day, one of the officers in charge of my security went to pay the €38 and some. I reimbursed my officer by giving him €40 and telling him to keep the change."
But newspaper, often regarded as the French version of Private Eye, pointed out that Zemmour had been stopped by a security guard at a La Grande Epicerie store in 2021, having forgotten to pay for his shopping.
Zemmour this week finally got the required signatures of sponsorship to stand in the first round of voting in April's Presidential election - but his poll numbers have suffered a drop in recent days. He has been an outspoken admirer of Russian president Vladimir Putin and has lamented in the past that France does not have 'its own Putin'.
READ ALSO 5 things you didn’t know about Eric Zemmour
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French satirical magazine Le Canard enchaîné has reported that on Sunday, February 27th, Zemmour, accompanied by a security officer, left a Bon Marché store in the capital without paying for €38.80 worth of groceries he had scanned at an automatic checkout.
Le Canard enchaîné reported that the discrepancy in till receipts was only noticed at the end of the day, and Zemmour was identified as the non-paying customer. Contacted via his campaign office the following day, the presidential hopeful sent a security officer to cover the cost of the bill.
Zemmour tried to laugh off the incident as a one-off error.
“I simply forgot to pay,” he told Le Canard enchaîné. “I left like that. The next day, one of the officers in charge of my security went to pay the €38 and some. I reimbursed my officer by giving him €40 and telling him to keep the change."
But newspaper, often regarded as the French version of Private Eye, pointed out that Zemmour had been stopped by a security guard at a La Grande Epicerie store in 2021, having forgotten to pay for his shopping.
Zemmour this week finally got the required signatures of sponsorship to stand in the first round of voting in April's Presidential election - but his poll numbers have suffered a drop in recent days. He has been an outspoken admirer of Russian president Vladimir Putin and has lamented in the past that France does not have 'its own Putin'.
READ ALSO 5 things you didn’t know about Eric Zemmour
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