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2022 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

French presidential election: the most memorable political clashes

As the live televised presidential debate between President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen draws near, we look back on the pivotal battles of this French political tradition.

Published: 17 April 2022 10:20 CEST

French presidential election: the most memorable political clashes

French President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen are set to debate on TV for the French presidency in a continuing run-off that polls predict risks being tight. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA and CHARLES PLATIAU / various sources / AFP)

The pair will trade blows from 9pm Paris time on Wednesday in a debate that is set to be watched by millions nationwide ahead of the April 24th run-off election.

Unlike the United States, where Republican and Democratic candidates spar at least twice, France’s frontrunners get just one chance to take each down on live TV.

The televised political match is set to be a crucial moment in a tight race for the Élysée.

Here, we take a look at past clashes in what is now a French political tradition, many of which are etched into the memories of the French as turning points in political history.

1974: Hearts and minds

Around 25 million people tuned in for France’s the first ever US-inspired televised presidential debate, pitting Socialist candidate François Mitterrand against centrist finance minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing.

The two were neck-and-neck in the polls but the patrician Mitterrand’s attempts to lecture his reform-minded opponent on wealth redistribution backfired.

“It’s a matter of heart not just intelligence,” Mitterrand argued, to which Giscard retorted: “You don’t have a monopoly on the heart, Mr Mitterrand.”

Giscard won the election.

1981: ‘Man of the past’

Seven years later, the two met again, with Mitterrand itching to take revenge.

This time, the incumbent was the one talking down to his opponent, calling him a “man of the past” and asking him to prove his economic credentials by quoting the franc-deutschmark exchange rate.

“I’m not your student!” Mitterrand objected.

Giscard was voted out after a single term.

1988: President vs premier

1988 produced the strange spectacle of a president taking on his own prime minister. Mitterrand and centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac were uneasy bedfellows in what the French call a “cohabitation”, where the president and government are from opposite sides of the left-right divide.

Sparks flew when Chirac insisted on calling the incumbent “Mister Mitterrand” instead of “Mister president.”

Former French President Jacques Chirac was a master of the insult. (Photo by SEBASTIEN NOGIER / AFP)

“Tonight I’m not the prime minister and you’re not the president of the republic…We’re two equal candidates,” Chirac said.

“You’re quite right, mister prime minister,” Mitterrand snapped back. Mitterrand got re-elected.

1995: Return of the right

While the first three debates got voters’ blood up, the excessively civil duel between Chirac and former Mitterrand minister Lionel Jospin in 1995 was met with howls of disappointment.

The only memorable line from their exchange was Jospin’s claim that “it’s better to have five years with Jospin (he backed the shift from a seven-year to a five-year presidential mandate) than seven years with Chirac.”

Chirac triumphed nonetheless, winning back the presidency for the right.

2002: No debate with Le Pen

In 2002, France was in shock after far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen overtook Jospin in the first round of the election to tee up a spot in the run-off against the incumbent Chirac.

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Chirac refused to have a debate with Le Pen saying that “faced with intolerance and hatred, no debate is possible.” Le Pen accused him of “copping out.”

Backed by moderates from both the right and left Chirac trounced Le Pen.

2007: ‘Calm down!’

The first woman to make a presidential run-off, the Socialist Party’s Segolene Royal, went on the attack in 2007 against then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy over support for the disabled.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy casts his ballot for the first round of France’s presidential election at a polling station in Paris. (Photo: Julien de Rosa / AFP)

Sarkozy, who has a reputation for irascibility, refused to take the bait. “Calm down!” he told her.

“To be a president, you have to be calm.” Royal refused to concede the point, insisting her anger is “very healthy”.

Sarkozy won.

2012: ‘I, president’

Five years later, the pugnacious Sarkozy badly needed to land a knockout blow on Royal’s former partner François Hollande in order to hang onto the presidency. The taunts flew. Sarkozy called Hollande “a little slanderer” and accused him of lying.

But it was the Socialist Party leader, who had campaigned as a Mr Normal, who delivered the most memorable lines.

In a series of statements starting “I, as president of the republic” he set out plans to clean up the tainted political landscape bequeathed by his rival. Hollande won.

2017: Wipeout

The 2017 debate, pitting nationalist Marine Le Pen – daughter of Jean-Marie who made history when he got into the run-off round in 2002 – against liberal centrist Macron is deemed the most brutal of all.

Le Pen was accused of drawing from Donald Trump’s populist playbook by mocking Macron’s relationship with his wife, Brigitte. Macron for his part accused her of “lies”.

Le Pen got increasingly flummoxed and rummaged through her notes when Macron took her to task on her economic programme, including her plans to bring back the French franc.

Le Pen later admits that she “failed” the test. Macron won.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.