French Election: Le Pen, Macron Trade Insults in TV Debate
Local Editor
The French independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen traded personal insults and clashed over how to fix the sluggish French economy and fight terrorism in a bruising live TV presidential debate days before the final vote this weekend.
In the prolonged two-and-a-half-hour slanging match that featured more invective than any other debate in French presidential history, Macron branded Le Pen an ill-informed, corrupt, dangerously nationalistic and "hate-filled" liar who "fed off France's misery" and would bring "civil war" to France.
She in turn called the former economy minister an arrogant, spoilt, cold-eyed, "smirking banker" who was colluding with ‘Islamists', complacent on terrorism and intent on "butchering France" in favor of "big economic interests".
Both accused the other of taking French people for imbeciles. At one point, after a long attack saying Le Pen was lying to the French public, Macron snapped: "I'm sorry, Madame Le Pen; France deserves better than you."
Just after Le Pen had left the TV studios, accusing Macron of "lies and aggression", snap polling by Elabe for BFM television found that a clear majority of French people felt the centrist candidate had been the most convincing. Polls this week conducted before the TV debate showed Macron leading by 60% to 40% before the final-round vote on Sunday.
In a debate that was heavier on insults than policy detail, viewers lost count of the times Macron mocked Le Pen's recourse to her notes and slammed her for "talking nonsense". She snapped back that he was "arrogant", babyish and craven to big finance.
On jobs - one of the biggest concerns in a country that has struggled with decades of mass unemployment - Macron told Le Pen: "Your strategy is simply to tell a lot of lies and just to say what isn't going right in the country." She said he favored "uncontrolled globalization" and would sell off state assets to the highest bidder.
Although Le Pen was under pressure to flesh out her policy proposals, she spent more time attacking Macron and the record of the outgoing Socialist government.
Terrorism was another key issue after a series of deadly attacks killed more than 230 people in France in just over two years. Le Pen accused Macron of an "indulgent attitude" towards fundamentalism and said he was slack on fighting extremism.
He replied he would be "uncompromising" on terrorism - which he called the biggest issue of the next few years in France - and said the state had to look at the social issues behind why so many terrorists who attacked France were born and raised in France.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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