Five years ago, Emmanuel Macron's team set a trap for Marine Le Pen.
Before the debate, the Macronian guard circulated, through multiple and discreet channels, the rumor that the centrist candidate was not willing to bear insults from Le Pen.
Macron himself, that same day, said
off the record
to a group of journalists that if the candidate seemed too aggressive, she would get up from the table and leave the studio.
As soon as Marine Le Pen and her crew heard about it, they completely changed their strategy.
They forgot the purpose of showing a serene and well-prepared candidate.
They decided to attack, provoke and thoroughly use sarcasm to get Macron to leave the debate and leave an empty chair in front of Le Pen.
That image, they thought, could turn the polls upside down and bring Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter to the presidency.
Macron, evidently, remained impassive and well seated while Le Pen charged and, unbalanced by her own impulse, ended up letting out extemporaneous laughter and pedaling in the void.
The Macronian guard's trap worked perfectly.
After doing a horrendous role in that debate, it seemed impossible that Marine Le Pen could maintain her presidential aspirations.
But here it is again.
The Le Pen are tough to peel.
This time, the far-right candidate appeared in the debate reasonably sedated, with the aim of presenting herself to the French as a stateswoman equipped with an applicable government program (it turned out to be a minor matter that she was not; in the debates, almost any thing) and with the courage necessary to preside over the Republic.
We will have to wait until Sunday to see if Le Pen had any success.
There are many doubts.
Yes, it can be said with almost total certainty that Emmanuel Macron (restless, wearing too much makeup, frequently touching his eyes and nose, with the lesson as well learned as ever and with the arrogant little smile that the first of the class gives to the clumsy student ) ruffled the nerves of all those people who can't stand the current president.
The thing is, to ensure victory, Macron needs a few votes from all those people.
The one who would have preferred to see Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the debate, for example.
Macron spoke much more than Le Pen about Le Pen's program, which gives an idea that said program is not supported even with crutches.
Marine Le Pen had no choice but to wrap herself in the tricolor flag, talk about the future of France as a great world power (far above that mediocre little thing called the European Union) and, with commendable insistence, express her love over and over again. by the French.
It is hard to believe that Macron, as narcissistic as he is, really loves the French.
It is easier to believe in the love of Marine Le Pen;
It happens that love is a little scary.
Go find out.
Sometimes promises of love work.
Even if they are formulated by the candidate of the extreme right, with those beautiful eyes and those thin and icy lips so Le Pen.
The French voter could really be so desperate as to subscribe to that phrase from
Johnny Guitar
: “Lie to me, tell me you love me”.
The electoral debate between Macron and Le Pen, in full in Spanish
The French president and candidate of the La République en Marche (LREM) party for re-election Emmanuel Macron and the presidential candidate of the French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) Marine Le Pen in the only debate of the campaign.Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN
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