France warms to Macron

‘ELITE’S DARLING’ TRUMPS ‘HIGH PRIESTESS OF FEAR’: CENTRIST HAS 63% SUPPORT

Final TV debate before presidential election sees far-right candidate fall behind.

French centrist Emmanuel Macron impressed more viewers than his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in a fiery television debate, a poll found yesterday, underlining his status as the favourite for this weekend’s presidential runoff.

The candidates clashed repeatedly over terrorism, the economy and Europe in Wednesday’s hot-tempered debate that was watched by 16.5 million people.

A poll by French broadcaster BFMTV found that 63% of viewers thought Macron was the “most convincing” of the two, broadly mirroring the forecast result for the decisive election on Sunday.

The duel was billed as a confrontation between Macron’s call for openness and pro-market reforms and Le Pen’s France-first nationalism.

Le Pen branded the former economy minister and investment banker “the candidate of the elite” and the “darling of the system”.

Macron responded by describing the 48-year-old scion of the National Front as “the heir of a system which has prospered from the fury of the French people for decades”.

“The high priestess of fear is sitting before me,” he said. The 39-year-old frequently branded Le Pen a liar and even a “parasite of the system”, who he said lived off the frustrations of France’s stalled political system.

On Europe, Le Pen accused Macron of being submissive towards German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying: “France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs Merkel.”

She also accused Macron of an “indulgent attitude” towards Islamic fundamentalism and constantly sought to remind viewers of his role as a minister in unpopular President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government.

But Macron repeatedly portrayed Le Pen’s stance as simplistic, defeatist or dangerous, targeting her proposals to withdraw France from the euro in particular. The euro policy “was the big nonsense of Le Pen’s programme”, he said midway through the 140-minute debate. Le Pen called the euro, blamed by some in France for a rise in prices, as “the currency of bankers”.