POLITICS – Down in the polls, Valerie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour clashed harshly this Thursday, March 10 in the evening in a debate which sometimes turned into a cacophony, the candidate LR accusing her opponent of “Munich spirit” who in return accused her of saying “everything and its opposite”.
This debate, on TF1 and LCI, was eagerly awaited for the two contenders for the Élysée who seek to relaunch their campaign, paralyzed by the war in Ukraine, and who see themselves left behind by Marine Le Pen and especially Emmanuel Macron in opinion polls.
But it was particularly disjointed from start to finish between the two rivals who kept interrupting each other, accusing each other of telling “nonsense” and making “shabby” or “pathetic” remarks.
To the point that the journalist Ruth Elkrief ended up letting go, exasperated: “we are not in a playground”. An atmosphere that has also left its mark on viewers, as you can see below.
– Anything !
– You started it!!
– It’s you quyadi it’s you quyé!!!
– The general
– Don’t interrupt me, I won’t
– DE GAULLE
– Well then
-Hitler
– Tariq Ramadan
– Jean-Christophe Lagarde
-Caroline Fourest#ZemmourVsPecressepic.twitter.com/ydmAPmk9oA— Olivier Auguste (@Olivier_Auguste) March 10, 2022
There is a rule in politics: during a debate, your interlocutor is not the guy opposite, it’s the public!
Some people seem to have forgotten… #ZemmourVsPecresse— Geraldine Woessner (@GeWoessner) March 10, 2022
On the refugees, Pécresse accused his opponent of “inhumanity” while Éric Zemmour was ironic: “every time there is a war, you will welcome migrants wherever they come from, you have to tell the French”, recalling the reception of Syrian refugees by the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Zero immigration, nobody does it, so you will be a powerless president”, assured Pécresse, defending his project of quotas and the end of automatic family reunification. Eric Zemmour in return reproached him for “a false policy of firmness in matters of immigration”. “Everything is bogus with you,” he said.
Moving away from the news to focus on Islam, the debate at times turned into verbal fistfights, in the mode “You are ridiculous – No, you are the ridiculous one”, under the overwhelmed gaze of the journalists. . Eric Zemmour has repeatedly accused his opponent of having “said everything and its opposite”, while Valérie Pécresse accused him of “mixing everything up” in his accusations of sympathy with Islamists.
The two candidates briefly, and more calmly, addressed economic and environmental subjects at the end of the program.
See also on The HuffPost: By refusing to debate with the candidates, these moments that Macron seeks to avoid