DIRECT. Attal-Bardella debate: Gabriel Attal criticizes the RN's "changes in position"

Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella debate on France 2 this Thursday evening for a highly anticipated duel in the run-up to the European elections. Follow the exchanges live.

Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella will face each other on the France 2 set this Thursday, May 23 from 8:15 p.m. The 2nd channel expects to achieve very good audiences for the occasion. A time cited to co-broadcast the debate, TF1 will ultimately not be involved. The match will be hosted by journalist Caroline Roux in her show “L’éveil”.

European campaign obliges, Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella will be invited to discuss their program for the European Union and the major subjects which animate the European Parliament. According to Le Parisien, the debate will be organized around three major themes: economy and ecology, immigration and asylum, war in Ukraine and European defense. 

Yet neck and neck with Valérie Hayer in the polls, the head of the list of the Socialist Party and Place Publique was not invited to Caroline Roux’s show on May 23. France 2 has chosen a duel between the two favorite camps, which has the gift of annoying Raphaël Glucksmann. His ally, the head of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure, also wrote to Arcom on this subject this weekend, asking the audiovisual regulator to “implement [his] regulatory power to ensure respect for the “pluralist expression of political debate”.

“Do you find it normal for the public service to organize, two weeks before the European election, a debate (…) between the right and the extreme right, excluding the left?” Deplored Raphaël Glucksmann on Sunday May 12 on France 3. The latter denounced a desire to “permanently reestablish this false duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.”

Strange choice of poster two weeks before the European elections: if Jordan Bardella is indeed the head of the National Rally list for this election, Gabriel Attal, for his part, does not appear on the list of the Macronist camp. Valérie Hayer, head of the official Renaissance list, will therefore be the other major absentee from this long-awaited evening. Remember that the MEP already debated with Jordan Bardella on May 2, a face-to-face which did not appear to affect the campaign dynamics of the two camps. This time, it is the Prime Minister himself who will come to defend Emmanuel Macron’s record and his European project. 

“I also find it abnormal that Ms. Hayer is made invisible and replaced by the Prime Minister, who is not a candidate in the European elections,” pointed out Raphaël Glucksmann on France 3. “It is a disavowal of the Hayer list, that this or not her”, confirms Julien Odoul. But for the RN spokesperson, “given the experience of the debate she had with Jordan Bardella, they are obliged and forced to send the Prime Minister.”