Within a week, France will decide who it will entrust with the keys to the Elysee Palace for a five-year term, during which outgoing President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen go all out in a presidential campaign that will culminate in tomorrow’s TV broadcast. debate.
After a short break on Easter Sunday, both candidates got back on track yesterday, but with small steps to prepare for tomorrow’s debate, which could be a turning point in the runoff campaign.
Pressure is mounting on the National Rally candidate, who was defeated in the 2017 elections by Republic in Motion leader Emmanuel Macron. There is no doubt that her opponent will not tolerate her attack, although according to opinion polls, he has a slight advantage.
Polls list him as the winner in Sunday’s poll with a percentage of 53 to 55.5% compared to Marine Le Pen’s 44.5-47%, but the difference is marginal and within margin of error, and so Macron’s success is not conclusive. and may be disappointed by the strong mobilization of voters against him.
This time, Marine Le Pen thinks she’s better prepared for the debate and says she’s “very calm”.
For a far-right candidate who is trying to build credibility and clean up his image, the debate is “an important moment because a lot of French people are watching it.” “I have read a lot of controversy about my project in the last few days, a lot of cartoons, even fake news, and it is very important that I have time with all the French people concerned so that I can put everyone at ease,” Le said. Pen said on Saturday.
Between the two tours, Le Pen held two major press conferences on governmental, institutional and diplomatic issues, expanded her presence in the media and organized one meeting in Avignon in the south of the country on Thursday evening.
Faced with support for her opponent from the left and right, as well as from civil society, the candidate continued to focus on the issue of purchasing power rather than her pet issue of immigration, and tried to convince the popular classes of the electorate.
On Sunday, her aides again worked to soften her stance on the highly delicate veil, emphasizing that banning it in the public sphere is no longer a priority in the fight against radical Islam.
Meanwhile, the European Anti-Fraud Office accused Marine Le Pen and her associates of embezzling about 600,000 euros from European public funds during their term in the European Parliament, according to a report presented to the French judiciary in March.
For Emmanuel Macron, Wednesday’s debate will be a “moment of clarity”. “I think I have a project that deserves to be known, and I have a feeling that there is a project on the right that deserves clarification,” he said in an interview with TF1 on Sunday.
“The challenge is to be attractive and persuasive, but without being overly professorial,” people around him explained.
