Since the entry into the campaign of Emmanuel Macron, it has become a subject of fixation of his adversaries: everyone wants to bring him down from his pedestal as head of state confronted with the war in Ukraine, to confront him as candidate who would have to defend the results of his five-year term.
Laëtitia Krupa: why are Emmanuel Macron’s opponents absolutely keen on this 1st round debate?
Gaspard Gantzer: As we have heard, they advance above all the democratic argument, the need to have a debate between candidates so that there is a confrontation of projects and ideas. Moreover, there is a tactical argument, the President of the Republic is far ahead in the polls, by nearly ten points and if they want to reshuffle the cards in the first round, they have to bring the President down in the arena.
Do they have the means to make Emmanuel Macron give in, for example by calling on public opinion to put pressure? Polls indicate that 60 to 70% of French people want the outgoing president to debate before the first round…
I doubt that the French will start to demonstrate to demand first-round debates. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the candidates, each time they take the floor over the next few weeks, will demand these debates, and that the accumulation of these demands, the repetition of these demands could end up giving way the President of the Republic, although this remains highly unlikely.
The debates are starting to be organized, Thursday evening Valérie Pécresse faced Zemmour on TF1 and LCI, but Marine Le Pen has already announced that she would not participate in any of them if Emmanuel Macron was not present.
As a result, the proposals are multiplying. The latest is that of Xavier Bertrand who proposed to the outgoing president to have four debates with the four top candidates in the polls. Proposal remained a dead letter.
Emmanuel Macron has found the parade: he accepts the debates but… with the French. And he set his conditions, from his first campaign trip to Poissy on Monday.
One month before the first round, is Emmanuel Macron’s position tenable?
Yes, it is tenable because he is the only one to decide whether to go and debate it or not, there is no legal or constitutional obligation that would lead him to place it in front of his opponents. And then, he can rely on the historical presidents, no outgoing president has made a first round debate. But this is an argument that can also be reversed: before 1974, there was no second-round debate and before 2012, there was no debate in the primaries.
What are the risks for him if he does not participate in any first round debate?
There is a short-term risk: that he lacks training when he has to debate between the two rounds. And as this debate will take place, he could be confronted with a candidate who has been used to debating for five years, while he has had no political confrontation since the start of the five-year term. The second risk is that of democratic legitimacy. Today, we can clearly see that the campaign is not really taking place, in any case, not that of defending the balance sheet of the President of the Republic. Perhaps if he is elected at the end of the day, he will lack an explanation, explanations for his balance sheet and his project.
The great confrontation of the candidates, a sort of first media round, organized for the first time in 2017 where the eleven contenders had clashed for nearly four hours will obviously not take place.