This is an unmissable moment in French political life: the two candidates in the second round of the presidential election clashed this Wednesday evening during the traditional debate between the two rounds. A face-to-face which opposed Emmanuel Macron, outgoing president, and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
Who is the winner of this debate? For Daniel Cohn-Bendit, former MEP, it is clearly the current President of the Republic who wins. “If she wanted to demonstrate that she was presidential, she did not succeed“, he tackles from the outset. And to add: “If we judge the debate, if we judge not only the quality but also what she has brought, Marine Le Pen is a good candidate… a candidate who might be an MP. When I project myself the idea of who can be presidential, it is not.“
The former co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament believes that the candidate had lost before she even started. “As her projects do not stand up, she can prepare as you want. We saw it from the start when it was stifled on purchasing power which is following all its strategy. […] But itwhat she is proposing is ridiculous. […] From the beginning, we see that his proposals do not hold standing. It’s not that she is not well-prepared is that she has nothing to say that basically makes sense.“
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In summary: Emmanuel Macron struck and Marine Le Pen took blows. This great football fan then launches into a footballing metaphor. “Whenat one point, you feel that in front of you it doesn’t hold the road, you start to you bother. When you play football, you scored 5 buts and there’s an hour left to play, you’re a bit fed up.“
Well seated in his chair, the president only had to collect the points, analysis Daniel Cohn-Bendit. “This is where we saw that he released and that he saw things from above. Some blame him.“
Should Emmanuel Macron accept this debate with Marine Le Pen? The one we once nicknamed “Dany le rouge” at the time of May 68 thinks he “need to debate“. According to him, “lextreme right is part of the French political landscape, it is not by not debating that you protect a country from the extreme right.“
Daniel Cohn-Bendit then describes a France divided into two camps. “This debate serves at least to try to make those who watch it understand that there are limits that must be described. And I believe that there we saw in any case that there are two France who oppose: a France which thinks that one can do anything once morest a religion in the name of a combat contre Islamism; andt a plural France which says that we must fight once morest Islamism, but that we do not have the right to do anything in a democracy.“
“Climatosceptique” vs. “climatohypocrite”
Active in the past within the Europe Ecology party in France, Daniel Cohn-Bendit returned to the climate weapon pass of this Wednesday’s debate. A sequence where Emmanuel Macron described his rival as “climatosceptic”. Marine Le Pen’s tit for tat response: “You, you are a bit of a climatohypocrite“. Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s verdict on the president’s ecological vision: “I believe he is learning a lot. The school kids don’t say fast enough. He is evolving. In his political conception, the paradigm shift that impose the transition ecological and the debate on global warming, cahin-caha, He’s going there.“
In this context, he predicts that “for the legislative ones, lecology will be an important marker of the political debate“. But, he continues, “lhe big problem in France is that the two-round majority system stifles democracy. In France, we don’t know what it is to negotiate, we don’t know what a compromise is“.
A Belgian-style compromise perhaps? “I admit it, Belgium is not always a good example“, smiles Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Nevertheless, he concludes,the next five-year term in France must be one of negotiation and compromise. If Emmanuel Macron does not achieve this, he will permanently face 60% of society who will always be once morest him“.
