“It is not enough to be young to embody hope,” asserts the Prime Minister. Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella crossed swords during a lively debate Thursday evening on France 2, two weeks before the European elections for which the RN is the big favorite. For approximately 1 hour 20 minutes, the head of government and the president of the RN, head of the far-right party list, debated in prime time, sharing nothing except a resolutely offensive tone, the civilized debates of the first minutes giving way quickly gave way to more acerbic exchanges.
Fracture lines
The presidential camp has great hopes for this debate, while the list led by Valérie Hayer is significantly behind in the polls compared to that of the RN and finds itself closely followed by that of Raphaël Glucksmann (PS-Place Publique). This face-to-face also somewhat symbolizes the emergence of a new generation of political leaders in France, the youngest Prime Minister (35 years old) facing an opposition leader with growing popularity, just 28 years old. .
“I’m not like you, to change my mind on everything. To not accept past declarations. To say ‘we want to get out of Europe’ then ‘finally we want to stay in it’, ‘we want to get out of the euro’, ‘ultimately we want to stay in it'”, attacked the Prime Minister. “That there are questions about the project that we are carrying out for the country that we want to implement is a fact. On the other hand, there is no doubt about your assessment,” said retorted Jordan Bardella.
The themes discussed – single market, customs duties, electric vehicles, immigration, defense – unsurprisingly revealed fairly clear fault lines between the two camps. One of the most heated exchanges focused on Russia. “Your party, that of Marine Le Pen and Jean-Marie Le Pen, needed money. Russia needed a party in Europe precisely to weaken Europe from within.” And “even though you have repaid your debt, you have a moral contract with them”, in the European Parliament, attacked Gabriel Attal.
Russia ? “Below the belt”
“It is not at the level of the Prime Minister of France to have arguments so under his belt,” replied the RN MEP. On national preference, the totem of the RN program, Gabriel Attal wanted to be interrogative: “how do you do it? You are going to cut off the legs of our companies”. “I assume I want to put an end to naivety,” retorted Jordan Bardella. Same screening on the concept of “double border” defended by the RN: “how do you do it?”, questioned the Prime Minister, denouncing a “smoky” idea. “Obviously we are not going to control everyone,” assured Jordan Bardella, referring to “facilitation mechanisms” for “border workers”.
The two debaters focused on the theme of immigration. With “the presentation that you make of the subject, we have the feeling while listening to you that behind every foreigner, every immigrant, there is a delinquent and a potential terrorist, and I find it revolting”, launched Gabriel Attal. “It’s the opposite: I think that almost all delinquency and criminality is linked to the inability to control our migratory flows,” replied Jordan Bardella. The president of the RN also mocked the “unrealistic environmental ambitions” of the government and the majority, with the ban on thermal vehicles in 2035. “New vehicles,” said Gabriel Attal.
“You seem to live in a world where we have oil in France (…) and where oil does not pollute,” added the head of government. The debate was also broadcast on the YouTube news channel Hugodecrypte, which has 2.66 million subscribers, as well as on the YouTube channel “C quoi l’info?” of France Télévisions, with the aim of attracting a younger audience. The competitors of the majority and the RN showed their wrath over the holding of this two-person debate. The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure like the president of the Republicans (LR) Eric Ciotti wrote to Arcom, the audiovisual regulator, to ask it to “impose” on France Télévisions “equal treatment”.