Candidates trade fiery charges, offer opposing visions of France
PARIS — French centrist Emmanuel Macron and his far-right presidential rival Marine Le Pen clashed over terrorism, the economy and Europe on Wednesday in a bad-tempered TV debate that laid bare their profoundly different visions for the country.
The duel ahead of Sunday’s election was billed as a confrontation between Macron’s call for openness and pro-market reforms and Le Pen’s France-first nationalism.
Thetonewassetintheopening minutes, with Le Pen branding the former economy ministerandinvestmentbanker “the candidate of the elite” and the “darling of the system”.
Macron replied that Le Pen, the 48-year-old scion of the National Front party, or FN, was“theheirofasystemwhich has prospered from the fury of the French people for decades”, adding: “You play with fear.”
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 blocked political system.
On Europe, Le Pen accused Macron of being “submissive” toward 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” toward Islamic fundamentalism and constantly sought to remind viewers of his role as a minister in unpopular President Francois Hollande’s government.
But Macron was in combative form throughout, repeatedlyportrayingLePen’sproposals as simplistic, defeatist or dangerous and targeting her proposalstowithdrawFrancefrom the euro in particular.
The euro policy “was the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen’s program”, he said midway throughthe140-minutedebate.
Le Pen called the euro, shared by 19 countries in the European Union and blamed by some in France for a rise in prices, as “the currency of bankers, it’s not the people’s currency”.
Trailing in the polls, the debate was probably her last chance to change the dynamics