At the risk of confusing or even misleading voters, French public television this week arranged a major TV debate between the far-right top EU candidate Jordan Bardella, and the French prime minister Gabriel Attal – who is not even a contender in June’s elections.
The 8PM prime time slot of French public television France 2 saw far-right leader Bardella of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally debate Attal on Thursday (23 May).
The other EU candidates were only allowed on set afterwards, to comment on the debate — prompting outrage among those candidates since French public television gave an advantage to Bardella and Attal by offering them such a powerful platform while excluding the other political alternatives.
This also gives the viewer the impression of an election between the same two political forces that have dominated French politics since at least 2017: Le Pen-ism and Macron-ism.
But most of all, the French prime minister is not even on the ballot for the June European election. French MEP Valérie Hayer is the lead candidate for the majority party Renaissance, and therefore, Bardella’s natural opponent in an EU debate. But apparently, she was not judged enough of a counterpart to defend Macron’s view on Europe against Bardella.
Even by that logic, it was a strange choice for the French television station. The far-right candidate is indeed dominating the polls, with over 32 percent of voting intentions, but Hayer is polling at less than half that, around 15 percent – which is not a significant difference from the Socialists & Democrats MEP candidate, Raphaël Glucksmann who is on 14.5 percent and rising.
The main question of the debate was: do we need more or less Europe? Presented as a duel between these two visions of Europe, the narrowing of the debate was itself irresponsibly misleading. Viewers and therefore voterrs were led to believe that these were the only two options.
