Last week a poll showed Zemmour overtaking Marine Le Pen for the first time and getting through to a run-off vote in next year’s French election. The Harris Interactive poll predicted Zemmour would get 17 percent of the vote, compared to 15 percent for Le Pen and 24 percent for Emmanuel Macron. The poll is an outlier when compared to POLITICO’s aggregate of all available polls, which shows Zemmour at 13 percent, behind Le Pen at 17 percent and Macron on 24 percent. But the Harris Interactive poll made headlines nevertheless.

Zemmour is a polemical figure whose inflammatory rhetoric on immigration and Islam is accused of stoking division in France and degrading the public debate ahead of April’s election. His supporters, however, say he is a breath of fresh air in a society beset by political correctness.

Meanwhile, Zemmour, who has been convicted for inciting hatred, is dominating the news in France.

“He checkmated the media. Just like Trump,” said Gaspard Gantzer, a former advisor to ex-President François Hollande. “Zemmour is very well-known in a splintered media landscape and is ahead of the pack because those who make the most outrageous statements have the advantage today.”