The only debate between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron has remained factual for long stretches. Marine Len Pen was not able to convince with her core topic, while Macron seemed a bit relaxed at times.
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen were much more polite to each other during the debate.
Two days is a long time in the final stretch of an election campaign. Marine Le Pen took these to prepare for the debate with Emmanuel Macron. Instead of campaigning, she retreated to a house in Normandy to deal with the issues she was to argue with her rival for the French presidency.
When she was finally given the floor shortly after 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, she began to speak before the show’s intro music faded away. So she starts a second time to present herself as the people’s candidate. She sounds a bit like she memorized that introductory statement. Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, seems like someone who talks about his life at the regulars’ table: he agrees with Marine Le Pen that everyday life remains difficult for many French people, but he also defends part of his balance sheet.
“You’re right”
The two candidates discussed for two hours and fifty minutes – longer than planned. Eight themes have been identified in advance; and the candidates don’t always stick with it. They spend only a very short time, for example, on the controversial topic of pension reform, on which both have trouble explaining their ideas to her in a way that is understandable.
It’s a different atmosphere than five years ago, when Marine Le Pen appeared to be particularly aggressive and anything but thematically sound. She had learned from her mistakes, she had said more than once beforehand – and showed this at least partially on Wednesday. Le Pen largely refrains from direct attacks on Macron this time. The tone between the two opponents remains polite: “You’re right,” both say more than once to the other. And Marine Le Pen even praises Macron’s efforts to mediate in the Ukraine war.
However, it also takes less than ten minutes for Macron’s substantive superiority to manifest itself – and this of all things with Le Pen’s prime topic, the rising cost of living.
Macron reminds Le Pen several times that, as an MP, she voted against his government’s decision to cap energy costs – although she now says she would uphold them. He also makes it clear that the promises of blanket salary increases in certain professional groups are misleading – after all, it is not she (as President) who sets the salaries. Here she does well by countering that he cannot oblige employers to pay bonuses either. However, Le Pen can no longer counter the argument that its across-the-board sales tax cuts are inefficient and unfair because they also benefit those who do not need them.
Le Pen also finds the subsequent topic of foreign policy difficult, where Macron gives her a lesson on how the EU works and accuses her of wanting to leave the EU without saying so directly. Le Pen bravely defends herself, for example by explaining why she is against an oil embargo against Russia: because it harms the French and their wallets, but not the Russian power apparatus. She also counters allegations of closeness to Russia’s circle of power with wit. She had to accept money from Russia in 2015 because no bank in France wanted to give her money. Her accusation that this was Emmanuel Macron’s fault – he was Minister for Economic Affairs at the time – again exposes her as pure polemics. Even when Macron pointed out that her dream of a French foreign policy that was respected around the world contradicted her nationalist agenda, she had nothing to say.
A relaxed President
Macron dominates the duel for long stretches, also because Le Pen is losing his quick wit. The president’s superiority can also be seen at times in his body language: Macron sits almost relaxed, leaning back in his chair, while Marine Le Pen never quite loses her tension. This, coupled with his at times schoolmasterly corrections, is reminiscent of the reputation Macron had at times for being arrogant and overbearing.
When the topics of security, immigration and secularism come up towards the end, Le Pen gains momentum, at least rhetorically. But it is also going down old waters, blurring the lines between Muslims and Islamists. She is in favor of a headscarf ban in public spaces because this is the Islamist uniform, she says. Macron criticizes this shortening and adds: “With this measure you will break a civil war in the banlieues,” he warns.
It remains one of the few moments in which Macron Le Pen attested to a danger, as he always did during his election campaign appearances. The polarization that characterized the debate five years ago was much less sought after by both candidates this time.
Their programs are fundamentally different in many respects – and therefore offer enough targets for attack. But the dispute remained mostly factual, and Macron obviously has better control of the matter. The first survey commissioned by the television station BFMwhich was published shortly after 12:30 a.m., confirms this picture: 59 percent of the television viewers surveyed found Emmanuel Macron more convincing than Le Pen.