(Correction of a dispatch of April 21, read “we are much more disciplined” in the 5th paragraph)
by Sophie Louet and Tangi Salaün
PARIS, April 21 (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen clashed on Wednesday during the between-two-rounds debate with a countdown to their 2017 game, which did not prevent acid clashes on purchasing power and Islamism, battle horses of the far-right candidate, and the diplomatic issues of the moment, such as the Ukrainian conflict and the future of the EU.
Four days before the second round of the presidential election, for which the outgoing president is the favourite, but with a much less favorable dynamic than five years ago, the finalists have endeavored to oppose two registers: that of the “spokesman” of the people who “suffer” and the most deprived for one, that of the herald of a “more independent and stronger country” for the other.
Drawing on the lessons of her failure in 2017, Marine Le Pen has cultivated a courteous and smiling countenance, sometimes falsely detached in the face of her opponent who, as in 2017, worked to confront the RN deputy from Pas-de-Calais with contradictions and alleged flaws in his program with a sometimes condescending and judgmental tone (“you are talking nonsense”, “you are lying”).
“Stop confusing everything, it’s not possible,” he said during the debate. “Mr. Macron, don’t give me a lesson,” replied Marine Le Pen, attracting this response: “I’m not giving you a lesson. I know the number by heart, don’t tell me Mrs. Le Pen.”
“We are much more disciplined than five years ago, Ms. Le Pen”, quipped Emmanuel Macron at the end of the exchanges. “I think we’re getting old,” joked the candidate.
Recalling her opponent to “real life”, Marine Le Pen has made it a priority, if elected, to “return their money” to the French, who are “worried”, according to her, “of a downgrading, of a kind of generalized precariousness that they feel” at the end of five years of Macron’s presidency marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“SEAM UP FRANCE”
The outgoing president notably replied that his desire to reduce VAT on certain basic necessities, such as salt, pasta, oil or diapers, would not be of any support for the French who have the most. need.
“Your measures are both ineffective and they are also unfair”, he attacked, citing a projection from the Asterès firm according to which this initiative would generate an increase in purchasing power of only 0.3%. .
He has repeatedly criticized Marine Le Pen for not having voted in the Assembly for government measures intended to support the purchasing power of low-income households, such as the “shield” put in place to limit the soaring prices of electricity. ‘energy.
The candidate of the National Rally has never ceased to portray herself as a spokesperson for the “people”, criticizing in hollow the verticality, the remoteness of the tenant of the Elysée and his “brutality”, and calling for the return of ” national fraternity” and “civil peace”, an allusion to the “Yellow Vests” crisis of autumn 2018.
She echoed the “feeling of contempt” she felt by the French “mistreated with violent words” and said her wish to “re-stitch France”.
The French, she developed, want neither “checks” nor “ration tickets”, deploring “400,000 additional poor people” since 2017 and the development of an “uberized” economy with “very low-cost jobs, very precarious”.
“Assuming” the 600 billion euros of “Covid debt”, Emmanuel Macron endeavored in return to underline the unknowns of the financing of the program of the National Rally, in particular on pensions, taxes or energy. “It’s not Gérard Majax tonight,” he said.
“CIVIL WAR”
The exchanges stiffened on the international chapter.
Referring to the Ukrainian conflict, the outgoing president accused Marine Le Pen of being in the pay of Vladimir Putin, rekindling the controversy over the loan contracted in 2014 from a Russian bank by his party, the former Front national.
“You don’t talk to other leaders, you talk to your banker when you talk about Russia, that’s the problem,” he said.
While Marine Le Pen withdrew from her program a project for “Frexit”, France’s exit from the European Union which she proposed in 2017, Emmanuel Macron accused her of wanting to work towards the same outcome, but of disguised way.
“What you are describing looks like a band apart,” he said when his opponent pleaded for a “Europe of nations”. “You lie about the merchandise,” he added.
The tension was also palpable on ecology, of which Emmanuel Macron asserted the primacy in order to capture part of the left-wing electorate. “You are the worst in punitive ecology”, asserted Marine Le Pen, refuting any climatoscepticism in the face of a “climatohypocrite”.
The confrontation reached its climax at the end of the debate when Marine Le Pen defended her controversial project to ban the wearing of the Islamic veil in public space, through “a law for the defense of freedom”, a law “against Islamist ideology”.
“You only live from fear and resentment”, judged Emmanuel Macron, worrying about a “very serious” measure, “a betrayal of what the French spirit and the Republic is”.
“You will create civil war,” he said. (Written by Sophie Louet, edited by Tangi Salaün)