“The Battle of the Elysée” episode 2: when the virus shakes up the presidential campaign

This is a series of burning news. This Monday, January 17, at 10:55 p.m., TF1 is broadcasting the second episode of “The Battle of the Elysée”, the documentary series by François-Xavier Ménage which takes us behind the scenes of the presidential race. The great TF1 reporter accompanied by Elisa Helain and Claire Leising, journalists for Capa, went into the field alongside the candidates to reveal the behind the scenes of a merciless struggle for power.

“In this new episode, we are going to have a guest, whom we were expecting, but whom we did not imagine would arrive in such a sensational way, it is the Covid of course”, says François-Xavier Ménage. “It paralyzes, it blocks, it annoys almost all candidates”. We will see it in particular in a sequence with Marine Le Pen who believes that this health crisis endangers democracy and only serves one person: Emmanuel Macron, whose goal is, according to her, to divide France. Chance of the calendar, a few hours later, the president will pronounce his polemical sentence on the non-vaccinated, whom he says he wants “annoy”.

“It’s a sequence that says a lot about the climate of this campaign”, believes François-Xavier Ménage who managed to collect the reaction of François Bayrou and Philippe de Villiers, who makes extremely violent remarks against Emmanuel Macron whom he supported before joining Eric Zemmour. “The words he uses are among the most violent we have heard since the start of this campaign”, reveals the journalist.

It must be said that this campaign is particularly trying, as François Bayrou, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon point out. The leader of France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon even admits, in a great moment of frankness, that he has no memory of such a climate “creepy” than the one we are living.

“We will also have a rather new and rare sequence of a crisis meeting on sponsorships between Eric Zemmour, Sarah Knaffo and Philippe de Villiers, where we understand a little what the role of the latter will be. But also a passage in which Olivier Faure uses extremely violent words on the accelerated downfall of the left and the Socialist Party in particular”, concludes François-Xavier Ménage.

The Battle of the Elysée, Monday January 17 at 10:55 p.m. on TF1, then one episode each month until March.