Emmanuel Macron’s camp is considering proposing a new debate between the head of state and Marine Le Pen before the European elections. The latter said what she thought about it.
In Emmanuel Macron’s entourage, an idea is gaining ground to try to relaunch the European campaign: what if the head of state himself was going to clash with the given favorite camp of the election, that of the National Rally? While the head of the Macronist list, Valérie Hayer, did not manage to reverse the trends with her debate against Jordan Bardella, it was first the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, who was sent to the front, for a face -face meeting scheduled for May 23 with the RN candidate. But some close to the president now dream of seeing a Macron-Le Pen duel replay.
The idea, according to La Tribune Dimanche, was mentioned at the Élysée during a dinner given on the occasion of the presentation of the Legion of Honor to former senator Pierre Charon on April 30. A Macron-Le Pen debate before the European elections? “I’m thinking about it,” the President of the Republic would have assumed. If the hypothesis is considered, it is because the Macronists dream of an outcome similar to that of the two presidential campaign debates which pitted Macron against Le Pen, in 2017 and 2022: the current head of state had been widely credited with dominating his opponent.
But what does Marine Le Pen think? In a statement sent to AFP on Sunday evening, the former president of the National Rally decided: “It would be very useful if I could debate with the president in September on what he intends to do with the three long years he has left” , she declares.
A debate, therefore, but after the Europeans. Because for now, the MP says she has full “confidence in [her] head of the list”, Jordan Bardella, to lead the campaign. And for good reason, the RN list is given more than 30% in all the polls, far ahead of that of Valérie Hayer.
Marine Le Pen does not hesitate, moreover, to underline “the little confidence that Emmanuel Macron has in his Prime Minister” to already envisage a debate in front of her, while the Bardella-Attal duel has barely just ended. be scheduled: “I find it very humiliating for Gabriel Attal to let this proposal leak before the one which must be held between the Prime Minister and Jordan Bardella”, she wrote to AFP.
Before adding that it also seems “contradictory to propose a presidential debate when (the Macronist camp) constantly criticizes us for nationalizing the debate” of the European elections.
