Macron and Le Pen clash over Russia and the EU in a heated debate days before the French elections

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PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday accused his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, of being Russian President Vladimir Putin’s slave over a years-old Russian bank loan to his party during a heated debate. television debate prior to Sunday’s elections.

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While also accusing Le Pen of harboring a constant desire to get France out of the European Union (EU), she responded by promising to put money back into the pockets of millions of impoverished French people during her five-year presidency.

A quick poll by Elabe for BFM TV found that 59% of viewers surveyed found Macron more convincing than Le Pen in the debate. In 2017, the same polling firm found that 63% of respondents found Macron more convincing.

The debate, the only one of the campaign, was peppered with calls to “don’t interrupt me” and accusations that the other was not up to the job of leading France, a veto-powered UN Security Council member and the second largest economy in Europe. .

“Stop mixing everything up,” a combative Macron told Le Pen during a heated exchange about France’s debt, which like others has ballooned due to pandemic support measures.

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“Don’t lecture me,” replied Le Pen, who avoided the pitfalls of a previous encounter in 2017, when her presidential bid fell apart because she mixed up her notes and lost her balance.

For Le Pen, who trails Macron in voter polls by 56-44, the debate was an opportunity to persuade voters that she has the stature to be president and that they should not fear seeing the far right in power. the power.

Macron’s strongest lines of attack were a loan to his party for his 2017 campaign arranged through a Russian bank.

“You depend on Russian power, you depend on Mr. Putin,” Macron told his opponent.

“Many of his choices can be explained by this dependency,” he said in an attack on Le Pen’s political positions, which he said still included a “project that he dares not speak his name” to withdraw France from the 27-member the European Union.

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Le Pen, who has toned down her former staunchly anti-EU rhetoric as part of a bid to broaden her electoral appeal, dismissed both the accusation of wanting to leave the EU and that she was politically compromised by the Russian bank loan.

“I am a completely free and independent woman,” she said.

With unemployment at its lowest point in 13 years, Macron said he was proud of job creation during his tenure, adding: “the best way to gain purchasing power is to fight unemployment.”

The two candidates accused each other of failing to respond to voters’ real concerns, with Le Pen saying that “in real life” her proposals would improve voters’ lot more than her opponent.

“I will make it my top priority for the next five years to pay back the French,” Le Pen said, adding that the French had “suffered” during Macron’s tenure.

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The elections present voters with two opposing visions of France: Macron offers a pro-European liberal platform, while Le Pen’s nationalist manifesto is based on deep euroscepticism.

There was a lot of haggling behind the scenes before the debate, from the temperature of the room to tossing a coin to decide which topic they would start with, the cost of living, to who would speak first, Le Pen.

With both candidates dismissing the other’s plans as unrealistic but not scoring any obvious knockout blows, it may be unclear what impact the debate has on the electorate.

Only 14% of voters were waiting for the debate to decide who to vote for, while 12% said it would be decisive to vote, an OpinionWay-Kea Partners poll for Les Echos newspaper showed.

That said, after more than half of the electorate voted for far-right or far-left candidates in the first round on April 10, Macron’s lead in opinion polls is much narrower than it was five years ago, when he topped to Le Pen with 66.1% of the votes. The vote.

Since then, Le Pen has managed, at least in part, to appeal to mainstream voters, while Macron is no longer the same foreign policy disruptor he was in the 2017 debate, which at the time cemented his status as the clear favorite.