5
takeaways from the French Right’s first debate
Seven
candidates, three debates, one winner.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
10/14/16, 1:08 AM CET
PARIS — Rivals
vying for the French Right’s presidential nomination gathered on
stage for their first-ever primary debate Thursday night.
It was a largely
disciplined, at-times dryly technical affair punctuated by a few
pulse-raising highlights — like Bruno Le Maire losing his cool at a
pithy question, and Nicolas Sarkozy maintaining his poise when under
attack over his judicial troubles.
Here are five
takeaways from the debate.
1) Nicolas Sarkozy
took a beating (and survived)
The evening was
bound to be tough for the ex-president. Under formal investigation in
two legal cases, he was vulnerable to attack, and neither
Jean-François Copé nor Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet missed their
chance to pounce.
When the debate
(after a dry first hour) turned to ethics in politics, both said
candidates should excuse themselves from any election while under
formal investigation — a not-too-subtle jab at the ex-president,
who listened with pursed lips while standing between his two
antagonists.
But however tense
the exchange was, it was brief. Sarkozy said that despite multiple
probes, he’s never been found guilty of any crime and had five
cases targeting him dismissed. The lawyer-by-training then pivoted
aggressively into an attack on President François Hollande, whom he
accused of having “dirtied” the state’s institutions by leaking
confidential documents unveiled in a tell-all book published this
week — a tactic that moved the spotlight, at least partially, away
from his own problems.
On the whole,
Sarkozy was true to his pugnacious, thin-skinned and ruthlessly
competitive self. If his goal in the debate was to knock out Alain
Juppé, the frontrunner, he did not succeed. But he did achieve
something, which was to survive the first debate of three in the
primary race and avoid humiliation.
2) Alain Juppé is
still on top of the mountain
The former prime
minister, 71, had one job during the debate — not messing up badly
enough to jeopardize his comfortable lead in the polls ahead of the
conservative primary on November 20 and 27.
In that sense, at
least, Juppé succeeded, dodging any major mishaps and maintaining a
statesmanlike, generous pose. He even went so far as to hand out
brownie points to lesser candidates onstage, telling François Fillon
and Bruno Le Maire, in turn, that he “agreed entirely” with their
policy proposals. Juppé avoided any direct confrontation with
Sarkozy, and the former president did not provoke him.
But there were no
surprises from Juppé. Appearing tense at first, he became more
relaxed as the debate went on. Yet he looked somewhat shaken when he
came under direct attack from Le Maire, who called him “Alain”
while disagreeing with his definition of “identity.”
During a long first
section on economics, Juppé was unconvincing. He launched into
lengthy explanations that were at times tough to follow, and sounded
like ideas cooked up with fellow technocrats.
After Thursday’s
debate Juppé will probably remain the race’s frontrunner. But in
the next debate, he must do a better job transmitting his
hope-oriented campaign message, which is what really sets him apart
from Sarkozy.
3) François
Fillon’s surprise
Languishing in
fourth place in opinion polls, the former prime minister has
struggled for months to get his campaign off the ground. On Thursday,
he got a chance to showcase his skills in front of a national
audience, and that’s just what he did.
Early on, Fillon
stood out thanks to his relaxed pose, his clipped delivery, and his
serious-sounding prescriptions for putting a country plagued by
chronically high unemployment and indebtedness back on its feet.
However, in the
debate’s more captivating second portion, which touched on ethics
in politics, the question of “French identity” and security,
Fillon faded. He had to fend off an accusation that he tried to
influence a member of Hollande’s entourage to speed up a judicial
investigation into Sarkozy. And his prescriptions on security and
identity sounded less convincing than his pitch for the economy.
With a slightly more
liberated attitude during the next two debates, Fillon may be able to
ride his newfound momentum and pull off an unlikely feat: convincing
France that his candidacy for the presidency should be taken
seriously after all.
4) Bruno Le Maire —
tie-less but stiff nonetheless
As the second
youngest person onstage (Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet is four years
younger), Le Maire, 47, was determined to drive home the message that
he represents the “renewal” of France’s political class.
He did so
repeatedly, and somewhat clumsily. He was the only male candidate not
to wear a tie. He frequently addressed other candidates by their
first names, which looked artificial rather than smooth. And when
asked a pithy question by the moderator on his proposal to force all
candidates to publish their criminal records, Le Maire committed a
cardinal sin of public debates: he lost his cool, seethed “Are you
serious?” at the questioner and stared at him for several seconds
before answering.
At that point, Juppé
was ready to pounce. He recited the exact nature of a prior
conviction for corruption and offered to send Le Maire his full
criminal record — a response that made the younger candidate seem
petty and inexperienced.
On the whole, Le
Maire showed that despite efforts to look relaxed and spontaneous,
there is still room for improvement. Unless he finds a new approach
in the next debate, his third position in opinion polls will start to
slip.
5) Nathalie
Kosciusko-Morizet misses her chance
The only woman on
stage, a lot of hope was riding on Kosciusko-Morizet’s performance
in the debate. But she was not a runaway success. Intent on showing
the difference between her policies and the hard-right slant of many
other candidates, she failed to get her message across and instead
meandered into policy proposals she insisted were “truly modern”
and “different.”
Where she did do
well was in going after Sarkozy. Kosciusko-Morizet is known to resent
the former president for having kicked her out of Republicains
party’s leadership for diverging too radically from its line. She
hit back at Sarkozy Thursday, saying that it was “only decent”
for a person under formal judicial investigation not to run for
election. Sarkozy swayed with barely contained anger, but avoided
looking in her direction.
Authors:
Nicholas Vinocur
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