The French presidential election is fierce until the last minute

On the evening of April 23, 2017, right after getting the first result in the first round of the French presidential election, at the famous restaurant in Paris – La Rotonde, Mr. Emmanuel Macron had “dinner and intimate meeting” with Mr. advisors and close associates. That dinner immediately received a lot of criticism, the young candidate was said to be “too confident to celebrate early” even though he had just passed the first round.

Now, after nearly 5 years, on April 10, 2022, the voting results put the incumbent President Macron – candidate of the Republican Progressive Party (LREM), meets her old opponent in the second round, Ms. Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Rally (RN) party. Unlike the “first leg final” in 2017, the “second leg final” this period, the polls predict that Ms. Le Pen will lose, but significantly narrow the gap with the winner. Therefore, on the evening of the first round of voting on April 10, Mr. Macron did not hold an “intimate dinner”, instead announcing a schedule to meet voters from April 11.

President Macron continues to dominate in the face-to-face debate with Le Pen AFP

Face to face

The focus of the final stage in the race to determine the owner of the Élysée Palace in the next 5 years is the direct debate between the two candidates on April 20. In 2017, a similar debate was considered a “disaster” for Ms. Le Pen when she only focused on fiercely attacking the opponent, but lacked a convincing argument, and completely failed to express herself. What kind of president would you be if you were elected? Learning from experience, this time RN’s candidates actively create the impression that they are open-minded, “representatives of the people”, especially those who are workers low income, people living in remote rural areas… Even, Mrs

Le Pen even called the RN “a poor party”, to contrast, as Mr Macron is still criticized by the opposition as “the president of the elite, of the well-to-do”.

Meanwhile, the candidate of the LREM party has maximized its strengths in terms of mastery of policies, understanding of data, to serve the strategy applied during nearly 3 hours of “face-to-face” with the enemy. RN candidate. Mr. Macron pointed out that Ms. Le Pen is still a far-right leader, with a campaign platform full of loopholes. This strategy has worked, in most topics, whether it is talking about the “if I am elected for a second term” plan or when countering the opponent’s thesis, Mr. many details, citing specific numbers, many times pushed Ms. Le Pen into a position where she couldn’t answer anything other than affirming “it’s wrong”.

Proposal… unconstitutional

In the topic of purchasing power, which is seen by the far-right candidate as the focus of the campaign amid rising prices of many goods in France, the effects of the war in Ukraine on fuel prices and food, Ms. Le Pen also proved unconvincing. She promises to help each household save 150-250 euros a month by cutting taxes and fees, such as reducing the value-added tax on fuel from 20% to 5.5%. . The leader of the far-right party also affirmed that it would give tax breaks to workers under the age of 30, and increase subsidies for students. However, she did not say what measures the government will take to make up the budget deficit when implementing the above-mentioned supports.

As for the incumbent president, in order to increase purchasing power “for those who really need it”, he said he would increase social benefits for retirees, students, large families…, at the same time. will continue to maintain the “price shield” – limit the increase in electricity prices to a maximum of 4% and commit not to increase gas prices. This “shield” is considered by Mr. Macron to be more effective than the solution to reduce value-added tax on fuel. To offset policies that increase purchasing power, he emphasized efforts to create more jobs for the French. “During my last term, 1.2 million people were out of work,” he pointed out. Besides, according to Mr. Macron, the plan to gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 65 will also help reduce the burden on the budget.

In two other important topics, foreign affairs and immigration management, Mrs. Le Pen Not only was she overwhelmed when it came to discussing the details, but she also expressed far-right views that she purposely did not address during the election campaign. Specifically, she proposed opening a referendum on constitutional changes related to immigration to “deport criminals from abroad, not issue documents to those who enter illegally, regulate law relating to asylum…”. However, this proposal is unconstitutional because article 11 of the French constitution does not allow holding referendums on immigration. In foreign affairs, the leader of the far-right party was “reminded” by his opponents of his connection to Moscow by Le Pen’s loan of 9 million euros from a Russian bank in 2014.

Regarding Europe, Mr. Macron also emphasized that although he is no longer discussing France’s departure from the EU, the proposals of the RN candidate such as ending free trade are “turning away from countries in the region”. “. According to a poll by the Elabe Institute for broadcaster BFMTV, 59% of respondents rated Macron as the “winner” of the April 20 debate.