PARIS (AP) – French President Emmanuel Macron tore up his far-right contender Marine Le Pen in a televised debate Wednesday on her ties to Russia and her desire to deprive Muslim women of the right to cover their heads in public because he wants votes which he needs to win another 5-year term.
In their only direct confrontation, before the electorate spoke in Sunday’s runoff, Macron took off his gloves.
He claims that a loan Le Pen’s party received in 2014 from a Czech-Russian bank made it unsuitable for working with Moscow. He also said the anti-immigration candidate’s plans to ban Muslim women in France from wearing headscarves in public would provoke a “civil war” in the country, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.
Le Pen, for his part, has tried to attract voters who are struggling with rising prices amid the aftermath of Russia’s war in Ukraine. She said reducing the cost of living would be her priority if she was elected France’s first female president, and she presented herself as a candidate for voters who could not make ends meet.
She said Macron’s presidency had left the country deeply divided. She repeatedly mentions the so-called “yellow vest” protest movement that rocked his government before the COVID-19 pandemic, with months of violent demonstrations against its economic policies.
“France needs to be sewn together again,” she said.
The evening’s prime-time debate led to a gaping gap in politics and character between the two candidates, who are once again running for president, five years after Macron manually defeated Le Pen in 2017.
Studies show that Macron, a pro-European centrist, has a growing and significant advantage over the nationalist fire brand. But the result is expected to be closer than five years ago, and the two candidates are vying for votes among voters who did not support them in the first round of elections on April 10th.
“I’m not like you,” Le Pen said as they clashed over France’s energy needs.
“You’re not like me,” Macron said. “Thanks for the reminder.”
The French leader was particularly scathing in his criticism of the 9m-euro loan ($ 9.8m) that Le Pen’s party received in 2014 from the First Czech-Russian Bank. Macron claims that because of the debt, Le Pen’s hands will be tied when dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin, if she wins on Sunday.
“You talk to your banker, when you talk about Russia, that’s the problem,” Macron said. “You cannot properly defend France’s interests in this matter because your interests are related to people close to Russian power.
“You depend on Russian power and on Mr Putin,” he said.
Le Pen shuddered at Macron’s suggestion that she owed Russia. She described herself as “completely free” and said that Macron “knows very well that what he says is untrue.”
She said her party was paying off the loan and called the president “dishonest” in raising the issue. Le Pen repeated what he had said earlier: that her party had joined the FCRB after French and European banks refused to give it money. The loan has haunted her far-right party for years, along with its ties to Putin.
Just hours before Wednesday’s debate, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny also raised the issue of the loan and intervened in the French presidential campaign, urging voters to support Macron and claiming that Le Pen is too closely linked to Russia.
In a long Twitter post, Navalny said the bank was linked to Putin and “is a well-known money laundering agency.”
He cites no evidence other than his own investigations into corruption in Russia. But he argues that the loan could be dangerous for France if Le Pen wins.
“It wasn’t just a shady deal,” he tweeted. “How would you like it if a French politician took a loan from Cosa Nostra?” Well, that’s the same thing here. “
As she lags behind in the polls, Le Pen had to knock out the debate. But she made an unfavorable start: after being chosen to speak first, she began speaking before the debate began. I can’t hear it because of the music, it had to stop and start again. She apologized.
After the verbal battles began, Macron quickly put Le Pen in defense. He focused on her vote as an MP and questioned her understanding of economic figures. Le Pen seemed most comfortable talking about topics that have long been at the heart of her policies and her appeal to far-right voters: the fight against what she called “anarchic and mass immigration” and crime.
Usually a strong orator, Le Pen sometimes fought for words and fluency. Besides, at times she lacked her characteristic hostility. In this campaign, she seeks to soften her image and reject the extremist label that critics have long attributed to Le Pen and her party.
In contrast, Macron seemed particularly self-assured, bordering on arrogance at times, a trait his critics emphasized. He sat with his arms crossed as he listened to Le Pen speak.
Macron advanced from the first round on April 10. But Le Pen, who prevailed this year by using anger against inflation, significantly narrowed the gap in public support compared to 2017, when he lost 34% of the vote against Macron’s 66%.
In 2017, such a debate dealt a devastating blow to her campaign, with her unequal performance.
Both candidates must expand their support ahead of Sunday’s vote. Many French people, especially on the left, say they still don’t know if they will go to the polls at all.
Macron said the choice for voters between the two is clear.
“I am fighting against your ideas,” he said. “I respect you as a person.”
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Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France. AP journalist Elaine Gunley contributed.
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Follow the coverage of the French elections by the AP
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