The debate between the two rounds is an exercise strewn with pitfalls. First danger: the surprise interview. In 1981, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing tried to put his opponent in the position of a pupil on the board. “For the Deutsche Mark, can you tell me the numbers?” François Mitterrand, in difficulty, replies: “I don’t like this method very much, I’m not your student.”
Thirty years later, it is Nicolas Sarkozy who in turn adopts the posture of the teacher: “Do you know how much fossil energy weighs in the 70 billion deficit? Do you at least know it?” he asks François Hollande, who gets angry. “You don’t ask the questions and give the marks!”
“There is uncertainty, it is your election”
Presidential debates are also spats, entered into posterity. In 1988, Jacques Chirac said to himself “ready to govern, there is no uncertainty about the future”. François Mitterrand takes it up, with a smirk: “There is one, Mr. Prime Minister, a very serious one, the most difficult to overcome is your election.”
In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy exploits the anger of Ségolène Royal, in an attempt to discredit her. “I don’t know why Madame Royal is getting angry. (…) I don’t blame you because it can happen to everyone to get angry.”
Finally, very often, the debates turn into a cacophony. Until 1995, the candidates rarely cut each other off. But change of atmosphere since; the record was reached in 2017. At the end of the program, there were 2,062 times when the candidates’ words overlapped. It is 12 times more than in the debates between the two rounds of the 80s.
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, The debates between the two rounds of the French presidential elections. Constants and evolutions of a genre, 2017, The Harmattan.
Non-exhaustive list.