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Between the right of Valérie Pécresse who does not want to die and the extreme right of Eric Zemmour who dreams of embodying the future, the debate of this Thursday evening March 10 on TF1 et LCI was rough, sometimes inaudible, as Emmanuel Macron’s two challengers, still neck and neck in the polls, went blow for blow.
It was a dreaded sequence in the Pécresse camp. A few hours before the debate, by SMS, some parliamentarians from the LR right no longer even took the precaution of hiding their apprehensions. “ Valérie has stood out in congressional debates, it’s true, but Zemmour has years of training on television sets. », wrote one of them, a bit fatalistic. Another, sharper: If it crashes tonight, it’s going to be really complicated for the coming month… “. The same, after tonight’s show: Mea culpa, Valérie shows tonight that she is methodical. She had prepared the show much better than Z! ».
Tense atmosphere
Yet experienced for many years on the TV set with Laurent Ruquier then on CNews, the polemicist and essayist seemed to have less prepared for the exercise than his opponent Les Républicains. Valerie Pécresse, to whom some promised a long Way of the Crossdestabilized several times her interlocutor whom she accused of ” ideologist from the first exchanges devoted to the Ukrainian question: Eric Zemmour was wrong about everything. On Putin, on NATO, on Europe “. According to her, her far-right competitor has also “ discredited to govern France » and has « lacking in humanity by refusing to welcome Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian military offensive. And Valérie Pécresse to tackle “ Munich spirit » by Eric Zemmour, portraying a candidate « fascinated by the strength of Hitler and the strength of Putin – a reference to the Munich Accords, which in 1938 sealed Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia.
« Qwhen we are under the influence of Putin, we cannot be patriotic, and that is why Mr. Zemmour you are discredited for presiding over France »
Combative, more precise than the polemicist, the candidate LR tried to camp her opponent as president of “helplessness”a term she repeated several times in response to the “will to power” expressed by the Reconquest candidate! throughout the meeting. Did she also want to offend Eric Zemmour? “Women have the right to express themselves “, she also swung at him in an allusion, barely veiled, to the label of misogynist which sticks, rightly, to the coattails of Eric Zemmour and to the accusations of sexual assault which targeted him this week .
Faced with accusations of sexual assault against him, Zemmour recalls that he does “the dishes”
Lds two debaters disputed the heritage of Gaullism. Pécresse posing as the natural depositary of this family, Zemmour treating it as “junk Gaullist”. As expected, they also engaged in a contest of who would be the toughest, especially on immigration issues. “Do you want zero immigration, does that mean more foreign researchers in our labs, more foreign caregivers in our nursing homes?launched the patron saint of Ile-de-France. Zero immigration, no one will ever do it”. To which Zemmour replied: “Everything is bogus with you! »accusing the former minister of wanting to welcome “ all the refugees (…) in every war ». “In truth, you are profoundly a centrist and you will betray right-wing voters”he thunders. “At 8:02 p.m., she will call to vote for Emmanuel Macron. It’s his clone, they’re the same”castigated Eric Zemmour in a tense atmosphere qualified as “playground” by the two referees of this match, Gilles Bouleau and Ruth Elkrief.
Video: Polls: Zemmour double Pécresse – 02/15 (BFMTV)
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“There is no Nazi salute in my meetings”
Seeming at times to lock himself in his old job as a mocking television set polemicist, the candidate did not always seem comfortable, including on his favorite subjects. To mimic the supposedly weathervane character of Valérie Pécresse, he indulges in arm reels reminiscent of those who had ridiculed Marine Le Pen in 2017, during the debate between the two rounds against Emmanuel Macron. A little later, he got annoyed when Valérie Pécresse asked him, in vain, to reveal his vote in 2017. Or when she sends him back to his amalgams. “You tell us that Islam and Islamism are the same thing. Why then, you do not close all the mosques? »launched candidate LR, who also recalled the SMS exchanged by the former resident of “Figaro” with the radical Islamologist Tariq Ramadan. “I was fighting him on TV, you were hiding”sent him back the Reconquest candidate!
Another pass of arms about the “Nazis” supports of Eric Zemmour, according to Valérie Pécresse:
“- I am on the right, there is no Nazi salute in my meetings [ en référence à un membre du public du meeting de Toulon, le week-end dernier, filmé en train d’effectuer un salut nazi pendant le discours de Marion Maréchal, soutien d’Eric Zemmour]
– He was fired very quickly…
– Marine le Pen says that there are Nazis among you!
– Marine Le Pen says nonsense
– And yet she knows about Nazis! »
In front of her TV, the person concerned may have spent a quiet evening watching her two pursuers in the polls tear themselves apart.