Just three days before the
second and final round of the French presidential polls, centrist Emmanuel
Macron of the En Marche! (EM) party have emerged as the clear winner of the
televised debate between him and far-right Marine Le Pen of the Front National (FN)
party.
A survey on the televised
debate by Elabe, a research and consultancy firm, for the largest French
broadcaster BFM TV, also a CNN affiliate, found that Macron who was already
running ahead of Le Pen with higher ratings, further consolidated his position
after the debate.
In the debate, watched by
over 16.5 million people, that lasted for two-and-a-half hour and has been described
as the ugliest one in the French presidential election history, Macron emerged
as the clear winner with 63 per cent of viewers finding him more convincing than
Le Pen.
According to a The Guardian
report, the French media termed it a "dirty debate" with its
criticism targeted at Marine Le Pen for her 'permanent aggression' and unconvincing
words. The consensus read that Le Pen tried to avoid a serious debate with her
"multiple attacks and provocations" and therefore, made the debate
"unworthy of a presidential election campaign”.
Invectives, smirks,
insinuations and personal insults had a free run. Macron described Le Pen as
corrupt, ill-informed, hate-filled liar and said that her ultra-nationalism and
her contempt for globalization and Islamism will be detrimental for the French
society. Le Pen is a known European Union hater and has vowed to crackdown on Islamism.
Le Pen, in turn, found him "an arrogant, spoilt, cold-eyed, “smirking
banker” who was colluding with Islamists, complacent on terrorism and intent on
“butchering France” in favour of “big economic interests”, the report said.
The final round of the French
presidential polls are just two days away and Macron looks in a comfortable
position to sail through. Majority of polls before the Sunday's final round are
giving Macron a 40-60 lead. An Elabe analysis says Macron is expected to get 65
per cent of the final round votes.
The first round of the French
presidential polls were held on April 23 and the top two contenders from the 11
in the fray moved to the second and final round run-off. Emmanuel Macron was on
top with 23.8 per cent votes in the first round and Le Pen was a close second
with 21.5 per cent votes. The polls go to the second round when no candidate is
able to secure 50 per cent of the votes in the first round, something that has
never happened. Since April 23, Macron has firmed up his position and he is also
expected to corner left-leaning, centrist-right and other anti-Le Pen votes in
the final round.
Emmanuel Macron is just 39
and his political career is just five years old. He was the Minister of the
Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs before he resigned in August 2016 to form
the EM party. So his party has no political representation but he has an opportunity
as the French legislative elections are due in June 2017 to elect the next
French National Assembly.
Marine Le Pen, 48, is a
lawyer and career politician and has inherited her party FN from her father Jean-Marie
Le Pen, the highly controversial and polarizing figure of French politics who
is known for his extreme far-right ideology. Though she has tried to distance
herself from her father's extreme views, in order to widen her base, going by
the ratings so far, and her radical views on issues like globalization,
Islamism and terrorism and immigrations, it seems see has failed to make a
genuine course correction.
©SantoshChaubey