Nicolas Beytout 9:23 a.m., March 11, 2022

Every morning, Nicolas Beytout analyzes political news and gives us his opinion.

This Friday, he returns to the debate between Valérie Pécresse and Éric Zemmour Thursday evening on TF1 and LCI.

For the editorialist, the LR candidate for the presidential election has clearly won the duel.

EDITORIAL

First a word on the form: we expected a confrontation, and, no doubt, we had it.

It was a bitter debate, very attached, sometimes virulent in expressions, not always audible, not always very presidential, and which alone showed that these two had almost nothing in common.

It is certain that if one day the famous "union of the rights" was done, it would certainly not bring them together.

For the rest, it was obviously a very important moment for the two candidates, one (e) and the other victims of an air pocket for several weeks.

They therefore had to stop the fall, and even cause a stir among their respective electorates.

But this debate also had another virtue: to show … the importance of debates in the campaign.

It's heard,

Emmanuel Macron will not participate in a confrontation with his eleven opponents.

But, as we saw last night, a confrontation, a clash between ideas (as long as it is in good condition), it is always a moment of democracy.

A big debate is impossible, so we need debates, duels, we need something to form an opinion.

First lesson, therefore: let's hope that this face-to-face announces others, and why not with the participation of candidate-President Macron.

Pécresse did not give up

Valérie Pécresse clearly won the duel.

She has once again demonstrated that, if she is a mediocre speaker in meetings, she is really formidable in debates.

She had already used this weapon during the primary of the right.

Last night, she did not give up in her fights against the polemicist-candidate.

On several occasions, on central subjects such as Ukraine and refugees, such as immigration and the issuance of visas, such as women's rights too, she put Eric Zemmour in difficulty.

She had also attacked the debate very harshly by literally attacking her opponent, bringing him back to several of his statements on Russia, on Putin, and his refusal to welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Moreover, she was able to play quite skilfully on her experience as president of the Ile-de-France region to place some proof of her ability to do so.

Her main flaw: she interrupted her opponent a lot, even being called to order several times by the journalists who animated the debate.

Too much passion, then.

An air of contempt at Zemmour

Eric Zemmour never let himself be dismantled, and we felt his habit of oratorical jousting.

But he got a little lost in repeatedly accusing Valérie Pécresse of being a junk Gaullist (I'm not sure that moves a single vote, I even think that the vast majority of French people don't care) .

More embarrassing for him, he was short on a central issue of his program: zero immigration.

He even ended up admitting that he would grant visas “on a case-by-case basis” to immigrants.

And then there was in him an air of sovereign contempt for his adversary.

I don't know if he will one day manage to erase that smirk from his face, that air of disdain that he constantly displays, but that "body language" (as the English say) does not serve him.

But, I know well that, as always at the end of this kind of debate, the militants of the 2 edges will certainly have thought that their champion prevailed.

What is certain is that Eric Zemmour had a major challenge to take up: to put an end to the doubt about his position vis-à-vis Poutine, and I do not think that under the attacks of Valérie Pécresse he succeeded in do it.

As for the candidate LR, she absolutely had to put an end to a doubt, too: that of her ability to be the right candidate, a doubt which was born from her failed meeting last January.

Well, that's done, goal achieved: by her pugnacity in the debate, she erased the Indian sign that hovered over her.

Will that be enough to remobilize his troops?

Answer in the next few days.