"A land to be colonized since time immemorial": Zemmour and the praise of the conquerors

N. Rochat — Genève, Suisse — 2026-10-23

Three words

"A land to be colonized since time immemorial." Three words. They do not describe a country: they erase a people, a war of liberation, and the memory of hundreds of thousands of dead. For anyone who knows Algeria’s history, the phrase is not an opinion. It is spit in the face.

The thesis, first

What does Zemmour say? That Morocco would be a “true State” while Algeria would not be one; that Morocco would have a “long-preserved history” while Algeria would have none. The criterion put forward? Monarchy. “A kingdom”, he says. Let us see what this criterion is worth.

A criterion that proves nothing

Since when does the presence of a crown measure the existence of a people? Algeria has a political history that owes nothing to a foreign throne: the Numidian kingdoms, the Rustamid, Hammadid and Zayyanid dynasties, the Regency of Algiers, then Emir Abdelkader and independence. If monarchical continuity proves a “national history”, then Zemmour must explain why these Algerian states would not count. If he dismisses them, it is no longer history: it is a variable-geometry criterion, tailored to recognize only what suits him. At that rate, the historian should pack away his archives to keep a register of crowns — and, what is more, only of crowns one is willing to see.

The throne, misnamed

Let us note, in passing, what Zemmour omits. What he calls a “kingdom” was, until 1957, a sultanate. Morocco called itself the “Sherifian Empire”, governed by the sultans of the Alawite dynasty, reigning since the 17th century. The title of “king” only replaced that of “sultan” in August 1957, under Mohammed V. The sultan is, of course, a monarch — that is not where the nuance lies. It lies in what the substitution reveals: Moroccan monarchical continuity does not go back to an immemorial “kingdom”, but to a recent designation, adopted by a State that itself rewrote its own titles. The “old history” that Zemmour praises is, on this precise point, younger than he believes.

In praise of the conquerors

The most revealing thing is not the praise of Morocco: it is that of the “conquerors”. Zemmour admires that a history was “preserved, notably by the conquerors”. The conquerors, that is to say the colonizers. Here is a man who measures the worth of a country by the yardstick of its masters.

The contradiction, documented

Zemmour is not a stranger to Algeria: he is the son and grandson of Algerian Jews who left in 1962. His family knew the wrenching pain of exile. That he today sings the praises of the conquerors is not one opinion among others: it is a contradiction between his public biography and his rhetoric. One may point it out without attributing to him feelings we do not know — the facts suffice.

The satirical moment

“The Moroccans, for their part, know who they are”, Zemmour assures us. Let us grant it. But knowing who one is does not boil down to reciting the genealogy of a throne. If identity were measured by the antiquity of a crown, then France — of which Zemmour claims to be the guardian — would have to bow before all the monarchies it helped to overthrow. The republic, evidently, does not enter into his definition of “history”.

The conclusion

At bottom, Zemmour’s sentence says nothing about Morocco or Algeria. It says everything about his method: confusing a throne with a people, a conqueror with a protector, and a monarchy with a history. Algeria does not need his lessons. It has a history — and that history, it owes neither to kings nor to conquerors, but to those who tore it from them.

📚 BIBLIOGRAPHY (rule #19)

1. Barlamane, « Éric Zemmour pulvérise l'Algérie : "Le Maroc incarne ce que ce pays, terre à coloniser depuis toujours, n'est pas : un véritable royaume avec une histoire" » — https://barlamane.com/fr/apres-le-representant-permanent-disrael-aux-nations-unies-eric-zemmour-pulverise-lalgerie-le-maroc-incarne-ce-que-ce-pays-terre-a-coloniser-depuis-toujours-nest-pas-un-verita/

2. Gala, « Éric Zemmour : pourquoi son nom de famille suscitait des moqueries » — https://www.gala.fr/l_actu/news_de_stars/eric-zemmour-blesse-pourquoi-son-nom-de-famille-suscitait-des-moqueries_482928

3. Le Monde, « Le titre de roi remplace celui de sultan au Maroc (Mohammed V, août 1957) »

4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, « Les royaumes numides, les dynasties rustémide, hammadide et zianide, la Régence d'Alger »

⚠️ Published reservations. (1) The quotation is reported by Barlamane (a Moroccan outlet); the full version of the broadcast is authoritative. (2) The Algerian Jewish origin of the Zemmour family (departure in 1962) is a documented biographical fact, cited solely because it sheds light on a contradiction — in accordance with rule #52. (3) No intention or psychological motivation is attributed to the author. (4) The article attacks the remarks and the reasoning, not a community.