The debate between two rounds! The two finalists of the presidential election face to face, who confront their best arguments and their worst cunning in a Homeric duel, with, each time the same question: who will triumph? And who will bite the dust?
>> Direct. Second round debate: follow the face-to-face between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, four days before the presidential verdict
This question seems less obvious than it seems. It confronts us with a fundamental rhetorical problem, how to determine the winner of such a confrontation? To find out, let’s go back to the previous debate, that of 2017, which already opposed Emmanuel Macron to Marine Le Pen. It is an excellent case study, because the candidate of the National Rally conceded, herself, that she had been dominated in this exercise. There is therefore no possible challenge to the outcome of the debate.
Marine Le Pen’s strategy during this debate can be summed up in one word: aggression! Throughout the debate, she had sought to put Emmanuel Macron in difficulty. By attacking it on its balance sheet, clumsily moreover – we remember that it had confused two industrial files. But also, by not hesitating to go a step further. “The darling of the system and the elites, in reality has dropped the mask Mr. Macron, said in 2017 Marine Le Pen. We have seen the choices you made in this second round which reveal the coldness of the investment banker that you have probably never ceased to be. / You are permanently on your stomach in front of Germany, in front of the communitarians, in front of the money powers, in front of the banks on your stomach. The prone candidate.”
These are obviously extremely violent attacks, in that they target Emmanuel Macron himself. They are meant to make him appear cowardly, callous and corrupt. In rhetoric, this is called attacks : attempts to disqualify the opponent. It was not a winning strategy. To begin with, these attacks only work if the opponent cashes in without responding, or even ends up collapsing. Which was not the case with Emmanuel Macron during this debate. “You have been in insinuation for a while nowreplied in 2017 Emmanuel Macron. Madame Le Pen, the French men and women deserve better than that. / I don’t want the profiteers of failure and the exploiters of anger, France deserves better than that. / It’s sad, the country deserves better. / But our fellow citizens deserve better than that. I regret it Madame Le Pen, France deserves better than you.”
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There are two very different things. First, “the French deserve better than that”. It is an elementary rhetorical strategy. Reveal the process used by the adversary in order to devitalize him, even to turn him against him. In this case, Emmanuel Macron is content to point out, in one sentence, that Marine Le Pen’s attacks are not at the level of such a debate. And then, there is this other occurrence, towards which it gradually slides: “France deserves better than you.” It’s again, but in his mouth this time, a ad personam attack ! Just as violent as those used by his interlocutor! But as it follows a formula to which he himself has accustomed us, it shocks our ears less, we see it pass a little less, and Marine Le Pen takes the full brunt of it.
The failure of Marine Le Pen is not only due to the address of Emmanuel Macron and it is precisely the second element. Marine Le Pen made a fundamental mistake, she did not understand what was the deep nature of these duels. It is not, or at least not in the first place, to slay your opponent. But well, above all, to send back the image of a president or a president. This debate is above all a rite of passage and, even, of transformation, which transforms the last two candidates into potential heads of state. And for that, it is necessary to appear overhanging and unifying. Quite the opposite of the image produced by incessant personal attacks. It is therefore the very strategy chosen by Marine Le Pen that led her to the disaster of 2017. Will she have learned the lesson this year? We will find out tonight.
And I’d like to leave you with one last thing to think about. In the vast majority of cases, the two candidates manage to achieve this presidentialization of their image through debate. However, as luck would have it, it was each time the declared winner of the debate who then won the election. What if, in fact, it was the other way around? Wouldn’t that be the president-elect who we remember, a posteriori, as the winner of the debate?