Irish Examiner view: Macron has turned French presidential election into a referendum
Marine Le Pen, the far-right Front National contender in the French presidential election faced off against the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, in Le Débat on Wednesday. Picture: Eric Feferberg/AP
Much of the focus was on Ms Le Pen, who lost the 2017 run-off between the two by a massive 32 percentage points after a disastrous performance in the TV debate beforehand. This time, the far-right leader was said to be more composed and at ease in an attempt to correct an image of incompetence and aggressiveness she had portrayed previously.
For his part, Mr Macron was judged to have dominated the debate on substance, but less clearly so than in 2017. Indeed, observers reckon that while the incumbent was an obvious winner, he did nothing to persuade unconvinced voters to cast their ballot for him.
Where Mr Macron scored heavily with potential supporters was that he characterised the election as being a referendum on Europe, the environment, and French values — topics he hoped would resonate with unaligned voters.
He also suggested that Ms Le Pen’s efforts to moderate her image in the past five years had been largely unsuccessful and that voters shouldn’t be fooled by her attempted rebrand.
Attacking the incumbent, Ms Le Pen maintained that while France has emerged from the pandemic stronger than many neighbours, economic growth had not benefitted everyone.
After the debate, local polls indicated that 61% of viewers found Mr Macron to be convincing, as against 36% for Ms Le Pen. Only 29% found her to have “the most qualities necessary” to become president.
Only on Sunday we will discover what the French electorate really think of the two candidates.
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