‘Very unbalanced programmes’ – which French candidate is stronger on the world stage?

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have wrapped their highly-anticipated presidential debate – so who will come out on top to lead France in a few days time?

It’s a little bit like deja vu for voters in France, with this exact same debate occurring five years ago when Le Pen last challenged Macron for the top job.

In just four days, French residents will once again take to the polls and elect their next president.

Incumbent leader Macron was victorious in the 2017 showdown and then went on to become president.

It is this debate that was seen as one of the reasons why Le Pen was unsuccessful in her bid for the presidency.

Analysts say Macron was largely on the offensive, appearing like a challenger and interrupting Le Pen on numerous occasions.

Political commentator Natanael Bloch joined ticker NEWS, and says the debate was more civilised than in 2017.

“Le Pen wanted to attack him (Macron) on the five past years. So that’s why Macron was on the offensive because he didn’t want to let her attack him on what he did in the five previous years,” he says.

Le Pen is currently trailing behind Macron in the latest polls, but political analysts stress the race to the Elysee Palace is far from over.

Millions of voters remain undecided and over the two and a half hours of debate, both are hoping to gain the upper hand.

“It’s very difficult to say if (the debate) will have an influence on the vote, there was only one survey poll that happened after the debate showing that at the moment, 60 per cent of the people who have watched the debate were more convinced than Emmanuel Macron and 40 per cent, by Le Pen,” Bloch tells ticker.

As the debate kicked off, Le Pen said 70 per cent of the French people believe their standard of living had declined over the past five years of Macron’s administration.

The two candidates butted heads over this as well as Russia, climate change and immigration.

Le Pen congratulated Macron for his work in Ukraine but criticised him for cutting off Russia.

Bloch says it was impossible for Le Pen to not recognise that Emmanuel Macron, once again, is quite good and successful in some international affairs.

“She’s saying that even if she’s financed by Russia, it doesn’t mean that she’s dependent of Russia, which obviously is something that is really not strong,” bloch tells ticker.

“When you watch the debate. The only thing that she wanted to bring, is that the European Union will have to deal with Russia.”

Macron has been a strong diplomat during the Ukraine war, putting France on the world stage, can the Le Pen handle foreign affairs when she’s so tightly focused on national issues?

Bloch says Le Pen has changed her position in terms of finance.

“In terms of foreign affairs regarding EU for example, a couple of months years ago, she was saying that she wants what we can call the free exit, exiting the European Union. And now when Macron teased her on that yesterday, she said that she doesn’t want to exit the EU anymore, but she wants France to recover more sovereignty and more powers within the EU,” he says.

Bloch says this is difficult, because there are some decisions that can only be taken at the EU level.

“And as an individual state, you can’t really deal even on the international scene, if you don’t have the EU support with you. And this is where we also see the limit of Le Pen programme in terms of Foreign Affairs and International Relations.”

He says Le Pen seems to be in the middle of somewhere. “And naturally assuming the fact that she wants to exit you as she wants also, that France is out of the NATO military command.”

“That’s something that she repeated is that she doesn’t want to quit EU anymore, she really wants France out of NATO military command. And she wants to integrate also Russia and create more tight relationship between NATO and Russia,” he adds.

“But you know, with all of these elements, it seems a very, very unbalanced programmes in terms of international relations.”

Finally, Bloch says Emmanuel Macron knows he has has some success on the international scene such as the Brexit and he has the lead to drive Europe through ongoing crises.

The debate was broadcast on the nation’s two biggest TV networks as well as news channels.