PECRESSE – ZEMMOUR. The debate between Valérie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour on TF1 and LCI this Thursday March 10 was stormy to say the least. The two 2022 presidential candidates have been shattered on many subjects. Back in videos on the great moments of this evening.
12:34 – Retirement at 65 for Pécresse, 64 for Zemmour
Video – For Valérie Pécresse, Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to increase the retirement age to 65 is good, but with a few exceptions, however. “I will do this reform until the age of 65, except for the French who are worn out by work”, she declared, affirming in passing that “with this reform, [elle pourrait] free up resources so that the French do not retire below the net minimum wage.” As for Éric Zemmour, he intends to delay the retirement age to 64. “This will save us 20 billion,” said he estimated.
12:16 – Immigration: Zemmour, “powerless president” according to Pécresse
Video – A sensitive subject, immigration sparked a lively debate this Thursday evening on set. Valérie Pécresse attacked Éric Zemmour and his “zero immigration”. “That means more foreign researchers in our laboratories, more foreign doctors in our rural areas, more foreign students in our schools. No one has ever done zero immigration,” she said, saying : “You will be a powerless president!” For Valérie Pécresse, the solution, “these are the migratory quotas”. A solution far from being to the taste of his interlocutor. “So you are telling the French that you are not stopping legal immigration, but that in addition you are going to add working immigrants to us. Me, if a foreigner is unemployed, I send him back after six months”, a assured Éric Zemmour for whom it is necessary to abolish the law of the soil, family reunification, limit the students to “a handful, only the very strong”, but also to expel the delinquents, deprive of the nationality the binational delinquents and remove the social benefits not contributions to non-European foreigners. A migration policy which, according to Valérie Pécresse, would lead her to “powerlessness”. “Your politics will cause disorder, tearing France in two […] You are an ideologue, you are not concrete, you do not see reality. You won’t make it,” she said.
11:52 – The reception of Ukrainian refugees, the first serious skirmish of the evening
Video – On Thursday evening on TF1, the two presidential candidates showed their divergence on the question of Ukrainian refugees. For Valérie Pécresse, “when a people suffers from war, there must be a temporary authorization to stay in our country”. The candidate LR has also assumed that she wants to be “faithful to the humanist tradition of France”. As for Éric Zemmour, according to whom “Ukrainian refugees want to go to Poland”, the few who would like to come to France should be able to have a visa “on a case-by-case basis”. And the former polemicist to question his rival: “When there is war in Mali, will you welcome a million Malians?”
11:21 – “We must get out of dependence on Russian oil and gas”, says Valérie Pécresse
Video – Asked about the rise in oil and gas prices, the two 2022 presidential candidates were asked to deliver their ideas to protect the French. For Valérie Pécresse, we must above all “get out of dependence on Russian oil and gas”. Candidate LR notably highlighted nuclear energy. For her, “yes, there is the possibility of getting out of it. But we must help the French in the short term”. Éric Zemmour pleaded for an “emergency measure”, namely: “the blockage at the pump at 1.8 euros per liter”. And to relaunch: “We must reimburse half of the mileage costs of the 18 million French people who take their car.” Eric Zemmour also did not fail to accuse Europe. “It is because of Europe that we have not been able to take advantage of the French specificity of nuclear power,” he said.
➡????How to protect the French from the increase in fuel?
????️ @vpecresse : “We have to get out of dependence on Russian oil and gas. We have nuclear energy (…) I would like the taxes to be returned to the French”
???? # FaceAFaceTF1LCI pic.twitter.com/6U4mVvnEDb
– TF1Info (@ TF1Info) March 10, 2022
????How to protect the French from the rise in fuel prices?
????️@ZemmourEric
“The emergency measure is blocking at the pump at 1.8 euros per litre. Half of the mileage costs of the 18 million French people who take their car must be reimbursed.”
????# FaceAFaceTF1LCI pic.twitter.com/rcEUgHSaxQ
– TF1Info (@ TF1Info) March 10, 2022
10:56 – “European defense is a chimera, you have the same chimera as Mr. Macron”, denounces Zemmour
Video – Ukraine was the first topic discussed in the Zemmour – Pécresse debate on Thursday evening. Asked whether or not to stay in NATO, Valérie Pécresse felt that “Éric Zemmour was wrong about NATO, and about Europe”. According to her, “today, we are at a pivotal moment for Europe, to take its destiny into its own hands”. “I want a sovereign France”, assumed the candidate LR, believing that “without Europe, you [Éric Zemmour ndr.] you won’t make it”. For his part, Éric Zemmour recalled that “General de Gaulle himself left NATO’s integrated command in 1966”. And once again tackling his competitor: “You are for the opposite of what de Gaulle fought against all his life. European defense is a chimera, you have the same chimera as Mr. Macron.”
10:29 – Valérie Pécresse, just a “technocrat” without convictions?
Video – After Valérie Pécresse, Éric Zemmour was in turn invited to say from the start of the program why, in his opinion, the candidate Les Républicains would not be a good President of the Republic. He pointed to “a technocrat” who escapes politics because “politics is having convictions that you betray constantly”. Video answer:
09:53 – “Under the influence of Vladimir Poutine”, invectives from the first exchanges
Video – The debate between the two 2022 presidential candidates started very strongly this Thursday evening. From the outset, Valérie Pécresse tried to explain why, in her opinion, Eric Zemmour would not make a good president. The candidate Les Républicains did not mince words, believing in particular that “when you are under the influence of Vladimir Putin, you cannot call yourself a patriot”, in reference to several pro-Putin remarks by the polemicist in the past. And to let go: “That is why, Mr. Zemmour, you are discredited for presiding over France.”
09:17 – “Nazi salute”: in video, relive the pass of arms between Éric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse
The two 2022 presidential candidates had lively discussions throughout the evening. The exchange during which Valérie Pécresse recalled that Nazi salutes had been observed during a meeting of Eric Zemmour will be one of the most virulent moments:
08:31 – Eric Zemmour more discreet after his debate with Valérie Pécresse
Before the debate, Eric Zemmour did not count his television appearances but the candidate intends to drastically reduce his speeches for the last month of the campaign. This is not a deliberate choice but rather a constraint imposed by the counting of speaking time because Arcom still allocates three hours and twenty minutes of airtime per channel to the far-right candidate. Eric Zemmour must therefore make choices and deprive himself of certain appearances if he wants his meeting at the Trocadéro scheduled for March 27 to be rebroadcast on the news channels.
08:22 – Pécresse more comfortable in debate, Zemmour better in meeting
If the performance must still show its effects in the results of the polls, Valérie Pécresse ensures at least one revenge after her “failed” meeting of February 13 at the Zénith de Pars. The LR candidate was – perhaps – better prepared and without context more comfortable in the exercise of face-to-face dialogue with her opponent this Thursday, March 10. On the contrary, Eric Zemmour seems more in his place on the stages of his meetings but the candidate will have to appropriate the codes of the debate if he wants to have a chance of reaching the second round.
08:11 – On form, Valérie Pécresse more comfortable in the exercise of the debate
In substance, therefore, no winner, political ideas and the program did not have the place they deserved during the debate. On the other hand on the form, Valérie Pécresse knew how to be more comfortable than her adversary of Reconquest! If both were pugnacious, the polemicist got carried away and failed to put aside the habits of meeting performances and was able to appear arrogant in the eyes of viewers while the Republican candidate was able to hold a position safer and more serene behind the desk.
08:02 – Will Pécresse and Zemmour progress in the polls after this debate?
The challenge of the debate for the two candidates was to relaunch their campaign dynamics one month before the first round of the presidential election. Will the speeches of one and the other make it possible to raise them in the voting intentions? Nothing is less sure. The hysteria of the debate could even serve the two contenders and strengthen the positions of Emmanuel Macon and Marine Le Pen given in the second round.
07:54 – A “poor debate” and “not pleasant to watch”
We expected a winner in this debate but at the end Valérie Pécresse like Eric Zemmour seem to come out losers from the meeting. Even in their respective teams we recognize a “poor debate” and “not pleasant to watch”. It must be said that the aggressive spades have often eclipsed the initial subject, as admitted by relatives of the candidates at Le Figaro the day after the debate. A senior official of the Reconquest party! is more incisive and judges that “from a citizen’s point of view, it was a poor debate. I thought that one and the other would have more at heart to live in the function. Éric Zemmour preferred his clothes this time polemicist”. A bad strategy since “the pranks in the middle of the debate harmed the two candidates. The settling of accounts does not benefit anyone”, according to an elected Republican.
07:44 – A debate turned into a fight
The hour and a half of debate broadcast last night on TF1 and LCI between Valérie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour turned into a fight and was often inaudible. More than an opposition of ideas, it was personal attacks that were launched on both sides at the adversary, so Valérie Pécresse was called a “technocrat” without convictions when Eric Zemmour was accused of inhumanity for Vladimir Putin’s alleged influence over him.
It’s the newspaper Marianne who, at the beginning of the week, revealed the information: Eric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse could only benefit from about twenty minutes on TF1, at most half an hour according to Le Figaro, between 8:15 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. Fearing for his audiences according to the weekly, the channel preferred to resume its normal flow for prime time and broadcast the Balthazar series, with Tomer Sisley, from 9 p.m. To follow the Zemmour – Pécresse debate, an appointment was made on LCI, the group’s news channel, which inherited the second part of the exchanges, until 9:30 p.m.
While he appeared to be the surprise candidate last fall, capable of shaking up the announced Macron-Le Pen duel, Eric Zemmour came to a halt at the end of 2021 and more particularly since the start of the year 2022. After a slight improvement in mid-February, the former polemicist is clearly capping below 15% of voting intentions, little helped it is true by the exhumation of several pro-Putin remarks during his campaign. Zemmour was given 12.5% in the latest Harris Interractive poll for Challenge and published on Wednesday March 9, tied with Jean-Luc Mélenchon for third position (Emmanuel Macron being above 30% and Marine Le Pen at 18.5%). Valérie Pécresse, who is struggling to recover from the failure of her first major meeting at Zenith, is ultimately following a fairly similar trajectory. Boosted by the right-wing primary at the start of last December, she initially seemed able to beat Zemmour himself as well as Marine Le Pen at the post and qualify for the second round against Emmanuel Macron with 20% of the voting intentions. . But since then, it’s been falling in the polls, Valérie Pécresse was credited with 10.5% of the votes in the last Harris Interractive.