Le Pen fails to sway voters in French TV debate
MARINE Le Pen was labelled soft on her euro exit plans during a TV debate performance that failed to win over viewers.
The National Front leader’s opposition to the EU has been a signature issue in the presidential election. Yet with all candidates granted a hearing in a four-hour discussion, Le Pen repeatedly lost her cool and was confronted by a marginal rival who tried to paint himself as the true anti-euro firebrand.
Two snap polls rated her only the fourth-most-convincing candidate, with roughly half the endorsements of front-runner Emmanuel Macron.
“What I see here around this table is 10 out of 11 candidates who approve in principle of the EU and all propose to renegotiate,” said Francois Asselineau, who has the support of 0.5% of the electorate, according to pollster Ifop.
“I am the only candidate of Frexit, which is to say the exit from the EU.” The first French election debate to include all the candidates featured a Ford factory worker in a T-shirt, a drawling southern farmer and a high school teacher in her second run for president who called for firing workers to be outlawed.
With another debate planned for April 20 still not confirmed, Tuesday night’s exercise may have been the last chance to present all the candidates to voters before the April 23 first round of the election.
Communist-backed Jean- Luc Melenchon was judged the best performer in an Elabe poll of 1 024 viewers. Twenty-five percent said Melenchon was the most convincing, followed by 21% for Macron. Republican Francois Fillon scored 15%, followed by Le Pen at 11%. A separate survey by OpinionWay had Melenchon, Macron and Fillon tied on 18% with Le Pen at 11%.
Socialist Benoit Hamon again received the worst scores of the top five candidates.
“Marine Le Pen’s score is quite mediocre because she had competition on the anti-European issue,” Elabe pollster Bernard Sananes said.
Fillon “didn’t get any fresh momentum.”