The exchange was as expected in one camp as in the other.
Dressed both in navy blue, Marine Le Pen and Gerald Darmanin debated Thursday evening on the set of "You have the floor" on France 2. For the president of the RN, visibly a little stressed but anxious to adopt a solemn tone far from the one she had during the in-between debate against Emmanuel Macron, it was to demonstrate that the law on separatism is an "administrative police text".
"You are not fighting against Islamist ideology," she accused the Minister of the Interior, presenting her own counter-project which aims to ban it.
“Will you vote for this text?
", Immediately tried to trap Gérald Darmanin while systematically reducing her to her" simple "status as a member of Parliament.
"It will depend on what happens tonight," she replied cautiously, referring to the debate on Article 21 which aims to further regulate home education.
“There are articles that go in the right direction.
We must be objective, ”conceded Marine Le Pen, in accordance with his strategy of presidentialization.
Playing with reversed front, the president of the RN assured that Islamism did not represent "not a problem with Islam" but that "it is an ideology".
"I do not find you hard enough", replied, falsely surprised, the tenant of Beauvau.
"I find you a little soft," he hammered home again.
Preferred sparring partner
Marine Le Pen and Gérald Darmanin had already faced each other face-to-face in October 2017 in "The political broadcast" of France 2. It was then for the president of the RN of her first televised debate after that, resounding , of the between-rounds of the presidential election against Emmanuel Macron.
But at the time, Darmanin was "only" Minister of Action and Public Accounts.
The favorite sparring partner of Marine Le Pen has since gained political status by acceding to the Ministry of the Interior with the mission of laying markers for the head of state on sovereign matters.
A territory that Marine Le Pen intends to defend, more at ease with questions of security and immigration than economic issues.
"Tonight, she's playing at home," said one of her executives before the debate.
For the president of the RN, the stake was therefore clear: not to let these subjects be stolen by demonstrating that the text of the law "on the values of the Republic", currently under discussion in the National Assembly, taps alongside of its goal.
"Are we going to make Salah Abdeslam sign a charter of secularism?"
“, Laughed a few days ago an RN advisor.
For Gérald Darmanin, the stakes were not less: to become president in the face of a political beast who has already reached the second round of the presidential election and to put on his clothes as France's first cop.