MACRON-LE PEN DEBATE. On Wednesday April 20, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will face each other during the debate between the two rounds of the 2022 presidential election. This meeting promises to be decisive before the 2nd round.
[Mis à jour le 18 avril 2022 à 10h20] Five years later, he’s back. The debate between the two rounds will take place on Wednesday April 20, 2022. Hosted by Gilles Bouleau and Léa Salamé, it will allow voters to form a final opinion and to confront, program against program, the two qualified candidates in the second round. of the 2022 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. The outgoing president and Marine Le Pen will therefore replay the “match” of 2017. But unlike their first opposition, the outcome of the ballot seems more undecided. Indeed, five years ago, the polls were ultra favorable to the future President of the Republic. The situation will be very different this time and the verbal opposition between the two candidates could well be decisive. In both camps, this meeting is meticulously prepared. As the date approaches, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and their teams have already set a very specific program to work ahead of the confrontation. If on the side of the candidate of the National Rally, everything is done to avoid repeating the sinking of 2017, the seriousness in the preparations seems just as important in the entourage of the president-candidate, who fears an appointment “extremely tight” according to an adviser to Emmanuel Macron at France info.
First campaign debate for Emmanuel Macron
So, no question for the Head of State to prepare this debate between the two rounds over the leg. In the Walker clan, an agenda has been planned to allow the candidate to calmly prepare for this confrontation. From Monday April 18, Emmanuel Macron will be surrounded by a select committee made up of a few members of the campaign and certain ministers. Objective: to prepare the arguments to counter Marine Le Pen’s program “quite precisely, calmly” specifies one of his relatives in the public service. Second aim: to achieve, during this essential moment of the presidential campaign, to flirt with the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Yannick Jadot, a real reserve of votes for the outgoing president. But with a program strongly decried by these electorates, especially in terms of ecology, the head of state is advancing on a very narrow and perilous ridge line.
This Wednesday, April 20, 2022 will also mark the first real debate in which Emmanuel Macron participates. Since his official entry into the campaign, the president-candidate has always refused to confront his 11 other opponents directly. However, the one who aspires to keep his post at the Elysée had participated in several programs which brought together all the competitors. But two rules had to be respected: that they do not cross paths and that they do not have to debate. Thus, Emmanuel Macron appeared on the screen in the candidate’s costume before the first round, simply to answer questions from journalists. “On the candidates’ debate, never has an incumbent president who is running for himself debated with the candidates in the first round. Why? Imagine a 12-candidate debate, you have equal speaking time, you have an incumbent president who is in the middle. You can imagine quite well that you have candidates who are all going to seek their moment of confrontation with the president […] It is still necessary that the president can answer”, had justified Gabriel Attal.
A long-prepared debate by Marine Le Pen
This debate between the two rounds, Marine Le Pen has been waiting for it for a long time and hoped for it. If Emmanuel Macron offered himself a particularly eventful five-year term, the candidate of the RN, she took advantage of it, at the same time, to prepare for this new confrontation. Since her defeat in 2017, the MP for Pas-de-Calais has worked with many advisers to review and refine her program, know the files as well as possible… and avoid arriving with a new pile of sheets and notes on the tray. Five years ago, the plans showing Marine Le Pen rummaging through her countless papers in the face of a serene Emmanuel Macron and without any help had completely served the contender for the Elysée. From now on, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen wants to be seen as presidential … as a “stateswoman”, according to her slogan from the first round.
The disaster of 2017 has not been forgotten among sailors, far from it. On the contrary, he serves as a counter-example for his team. Marine Le Pen’s agenda has already been tied up to best prepare the debate between the two rounds against Emmanuel Macron. The three days preceding the debate, the deputy will lock herself in the countryside, in the west, surrounded by a restricted circle, including Renaud Labaye, her chief of staff, and Philippe Olivier indicates Point. The RN candidate will also be supported by members of the “Horaces” club, a group of enarques and senior officials in their fifties who advise her on many subjects. A training partner has also been appointed, a “clone” of Emmanuel Macron, to give the reply during fictitious debates organized to practice, be more prepared and make people forget the sinking which had confirmed his defeat to come. The attitude, very offensive five years ago, should also be quite different: no more aggressiveness, room for an explanation of the project to show its credibility.
A debate between two rounds like in 2017, really?
If in 2017, the question of the result in the second round seemed heard as soon as the announcement of the final poster, the situation is not the same in 2022. First, in view of the polls which give a tight score between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, this debate between the two rounds is of decisive importance and could well tip the scales. The reserve of voices being clearly on the left in the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, everyone will get down to trying to dredge this breeding ground through proposals going in their direction. Some LFI ballots should turn into an LREM or RN vote, where, five years ago, an uncompromising “republican front” had been established. But as the little music of “Everything but Macron” begins to be heard, Marine Le Pen could well try to rush into the breach.
Because it has a real angle of attack that could seduce, unlike 2017: the balance sheet of Emmanuel Macron. The Head of State no longer has the youthfulness that characterized his candidacy five years ago. It now bears the weight of a grueling five-year term, marked by many various crises. An all the more important opportunity for Marine Le Pen, the president-candidate having refused any debate before the 1er round of the presidential election. But for his part, as he is already doing, Emmanuel Macron should not fail to scratch his opponent on his positions during the Covid-19 crisis in particular, or on his discretion as to the invasion of the Russia in Ukraine.
A debate before 2and round presidential: two visions of society
During this first and only real debate in the presidential election, two opposing societal projects will clash: on the one hand, a liberalist vision of the world, which intends to be pursued in line with the past five years, which is added to checks and bonuses or even a development of the energy mix with renewables; on the other, a nationalist project aimed at initiating a withdrawal of France on itself, sprinkled with measures for purchasing power and contested environmental decisions. Two diametrically opposed programs with a symbol: the retirement age (64 or 65 for Macron, 62 for Le Pen).
The question of purchasing power, on which Marine Le Pen refocused her speech, will probably be preponderant in the debate. When Emmanuel Macron will talk about his checks and bonuses, his runner-up will oppose his desire to “return the money to the French”. Who will convince the French on the first subject of their concerns for this election? The question of immigration, being also preponderant in the public debate, will it supplant that of ecology on which the two contenders for the Elysée do not have the same opinions? In addition to the campaign on the ground and the meetings organized between now and the second round, this debate before the return to the polls of the French should play a decisive role in the outcome of the election.
On what date and time will the debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen take place?
TF1 and France 2 officially announced that the duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will take place on Wednesday April 20, 2022. The two channels have also specified that the show will start at 9 p.m. As in every election since 2007, the confrontation is therefore organized four days before the return to the polls of the French, that is to say during the second and final week of the campaign before the final vote.
On which channel will the debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen be broadcast?
While the announced schedule is therefore similar to previous years, there will be fewer broadcasters for the in-between-rounds debate in 2022. TF1 and France 2organizers of this traditional democratic meeting since 1988, will broadcast the opposition between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen live, as will LCI and France info, two satellite channels from each group. On the other hand, BFM TV, CNews or LCP were not announced as channels that would co-broadcast the debate, unlike in 2017.
Who will present the debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen?
Like TF1 and France 2 lead the operations for the debate, the latter is presented by a journalist from each channel, a man and a woman. In the wake of the announcement of the date of the debate, the two chains specified that it was Gilles Bouleau, presenter of the JT of 20 hours of TF1and Léa Salamé, presenter in particular of the program “Elysée 2022” on France 2, who will moderate the debate. A time evoked, Anne-Sophie Lapix, presenter of the 20 hours of France 2was challenged by the Macron and Le Pen camps.
What audience for the debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen?
A first indicator of French interest in the second round will be the ratings of this debate: in 2017, 16.5 million French people followed the heated exchanges between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, i.e. the lowest audience of the debate. history of these debates. Between 1974 and 1988, between 25 and 30 million viewers gathered to follow the verbal contests of the finalists, compared to 16.8 in 1995, 20 in 2007 and 17.8 in 2012. A growing lack of interest which corroborates with the constant increase in ‘abstention.