in Montreuil, at that time in the Seine department, now part of Seine-Saint-Denis. His parents were Berber Jews from Algeria, which was part of France at that time, and so they had French citizenship. They had moved to metropolitan France in 1952, before the Algerian War, alongside their parents and siblings. Upon their arrival in France, his paternal grandparents, born Liaou and Messouka, took the names Justin and Rachel, and his maternal grandmother, born Ourida, took her middle name Claire. Her husband was named Léon; this is the root of Zemmour's middle name. His parents were Roger Zemmour, a paramedic, and Lucette, a housewife. His father was often absent and so he was principally raised by his mother and grandmother; he has since said that this helped him to forge his character, and that it was his mother who instilled in him drive and ambition for excellence. He has one younger brother, Jean-Luc. Zemmour grew up first in Drancy and later in the Paris Château Rouge quarter. He was brought up in the Jewish faith, and he speaks Hebrew. Although private about his faith, he follows the directions of the Halakha and attended synagogues frequently until the death of his father in 2013. He has stated that his Jewish name is "Moïse". Education Zemmour attended Jewish private schools, École Lucien-de-Hirsh and École Yabné. He graduated from the Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 1979. He subsequently failed twice (in 1980 and 1981) to gain admission to the École nationale d'administration (ÉNA). However, he later became member of the admissions committee of the school in 2006. Personal life Since 1982, Éric Zemmour has been married to Mylène Chichportich, a lawyer of Tunisian Jewish descent who specialises in bankruptcy law. She maintains a low media profile and never comments on her husband's controversies. The couple have three children, two boys and a girl. In 2021, Zemmour was alleged by French gossip magazines to have made his chief campaign advisor Sarah Knafo pregnant, although he recognised her as his partner in January 2022. In a 2014 interview with Le Point, Zemmour stated that although he does not believe in God, he keeps a kosher home and occasionally attends synagogue services on High Holy Days. Political journalist Zemmour began his career in 1986 on the politics desk at Le Quotidien de Paris, under the editorship of Philippe Tesson. After the newspaper went out of