Le Pen, Macron come out swinging in debate
Clashing visions key characteristic of heated exchanges.
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron warned of “civil war ”if his far-right rival Marine Le Pen is elected.
PARIS — In a he a ted, high-pressure primetime TV debate, French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron warned of “civil war” if his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen is elected, saying Wednesday that her hard-line plans to combat Islamic radicals would play into terrorists’ hands.
Le Pen painted Macron as subservient to Islamic extremism, saying: “They control you.”
The barbed exchange over France’s fight against terrorism characterized the ill-tempered tone of the debate. Both candidates sought to land damaging blows in a clash of styles, politics and personalities that highlighted their polar-opposite visions and plans for France.
Le Pen painted the former banker and economy minister as a servant of big business and finance, and declared herself “the candidate of the people, of the France that we love.”
Saying that Islamic extremists must be “eradicated” in the wake of repeated attacks since 2015, Le Pen charged that Macron wouldn’t be up to the task.
Macron countered that Le Pen’s anti-terror plans would play into the hands of the extremists and divide France, adding that this is “what the terrorists expect. It’s civil war, it’s division, it’s heinous speech.”
He painted the far-right nationalist as an empty shell, shaky on details and seek- ing to profit politically from the anger of French voters — a dominant theme of the campaign. He called her “the high priestess of fear.”
“You lie all the time,” he said. “You propose nothing.”
As they sat opposite one another at a round table,
their debate quickly became a shouting match, with no common ground between the pro-European Union centrist Macron and the anti-EU Le Pen.
They clashed over France’s finances, its future and their respective proposals for tack- ling its ills. He scoffed at her
monetary plans, saying reintroducing a franc for purchases within France but allowing big firms to continue using the shared euro currency that Le Pen wants to abandon made no sense.
She dismissed his eco- nomic proposals with sweeping critiques and bristled at his suggestions that she didn’t underst a nd how finance and business work.
They also clashed over foreign policy, with Le Pen saying Macron would be in the pocket of German Chancel- lor Angela Merkel, a strong EU advocate.
The intense, suspenseful campaign has already steered France into uncharted territory. The first round of voting on April 23 eliminated main- stream parties from the left and right and propelled the 39-year-old Macron, who has no major party backing, and the 48-year-old Le Pen into the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday.
Wednesday night’s debate, scheduled to run for more
than two hours, highlighted the gulf between Le Pen’s “French-first” protectionist proposals for a more closed France free from the EU and Macron’s vision of a proudly pro-EU France that keeps its borders open to trade and people.
Trailing in polls, Le Pen needed a knockout blow in the debate to erode the seemingly comfortable lead of Macron. For Macron, the priority was to prevent Le Pen from making up ground in the race’s final days.