Emmanuel Macron of the centrist En Marche! has held on to his lead over far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen after their TV debate on Wednesday night that was marked by rancour and name calling.
The debate, televised live and watched by 16.5 million people, was a showcase of the stark contrasts in the candidates’ positions and their views on France and its future. An Elabe poll of 1,314 people conducted after the debate showed that 63% of viewers thought that Mr. Macron was the more convincing of the two. French voters will elect one of the two as their next President on Sunday.
Ms. Le Pen, who often wore a smirk on her face through the debate, started off by calling Mr. Macron the candidate of “wild globalisation” and “Uberisation”. She repeatedly mocked Mr. Macron for getting “irritated”, and insinuated that he was an elitist.
Mr. Macron, for his part, called Ms. Le Pen the “high priestess of fear”. If Ms. Le Pen said Mr. Macron was the political heir to the current President, Francois Hollande, who has had record low approval ratings, he accused her of being the heir to a legacy of fear from the far-right.
The far-right leader said Mr. Macron was beholden to large business interests and soft on Islamist terrorism, often referring to a set of coloured folders she brought which, it appeared, contained information to support her arguments. However, she was often not forthcoming with details, which Mr. Macron seemed more ready to offer, especially on economic policy.
Ms. Le Pen wants France to pull out of the euro and would like a common currency with other Eurozone countries for transactions between financial institutions, while the franc would be reintroduced for everyday use by citizens. Mr. Macron went on to explain the difficulty of Ms. Le Pen’s proposition using examples of a farmer having to conduct transnational transactions in euros and francs.
Trap of hatred
In terms of terrorism and security, Ms. Le Pen proposed expelling foreigners on a terrorist watch list, and stripping them of their French citizenship if they held dual nationality. Mr. Macron, who said he wanted to dismantle terrorist organisations and beef up intelligence, argued that an individual could get on the watch-list for merely crossing paths with a terrorist and that Ms. Le Pen was falling into the terrorists’ “trap of hatred”.
The candidates’ contrasting positions on France’s role in Europe and the world were on display during the debate. In terms of Germany, Ms. Le Pen has accused Mr. Macron of subservience to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “France will be governed by a woman... either me or madame Merkel,” she said.
Ms. Le Pen also called the “India of Modi, Russia of Putin, U.S. of Trump and the U.K. of Theresa May... great nations”, ones that had “turned their backs on ultra liberalisation and free trade” and stated Mr. Macron was following a 1980s economic model of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Mr. Macron repeated his vision of France as an open country operating in the world as an integral part of Europe, a more realistic vision of the future, some analysts say.
“France today cannot aspire to play the same world role politically as it could aspire to play several decades ago when De Gaulle was still President. You must take into account the fact that demographically, economically, militarily, France is increasingly ‘small beer’ compared to countries such as China, Russia, India and so on,” Douglas Webber professor of political science at The Business School for the World.
While Mr. Macron is expected to win the presidential election with a lead of about 20% according to polls, a long battle remains for control of the National Assembly, elections for which will be held in June.
“The Front National indeed could look forward to doing very well in 2022, should Macron fail, which is a distinct possibility,” Professor Webber said.
