Excerpt:
France has been thwarted in its destiny of greatness by the English and is now doomed to collapse into civil war between Christians and Muslim "barbarians".
You might think that such a prophecy — articulated by one of the country's top thinkers — would banish its author to the lunatic fringe. Yet Eric Zemmour is earning fame and fortune charting his country's decline, with his latest gloomy book Mélancolie Française flying off the shelves.
Zemmour, 51, has emerged this spring as the hero of the ordinary bloke, and a villain to the left-of-centre Establishment. Millions tune in to radio and television to hear him breaching taboos over race, immigration, abortion and, his pet subject, perfidious Albion. On Saturday night, two million people watched Zemmour clash with Georges-Marc Benamou, a leftish writer and adviser to President Sarkozy, on France 2 television.