It was undoubtedly the most anticipated moment of this short month of campaigning: a big debate, in due form, between the five contenders in the primary, each seated behind desks. After a first warm-up round last week on LCI, Raphaël Glucksmann, Olivier Faure, Ségolène Royal, Jérôme Guedj and Emmanuel Maurel met this Thursday evening for a second round on France 2. Le Figaro looks back at the main points to remember from this second confrontation, eight days before the first round.
Blockade of high schools: “priority” given to schools and unanimous call for calm
The five candidates were first invited to react to the blockages, sometimes violent, which have paralyzed dozens of high schools for ten days, many of them in the Paris region. In a double register, Raphaël Glucksmann claimed a “discourse of firmness”, both in the face of the excesses of the high school movement and in the face of the “state” of the education system. Undoubtedly the most offensive on the role of the Insoumis, at the forefront of the movement Jérôme Guedj accused “certain leaders” of playing “a dangerous game”. Allusion to the controversial remarks of the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, for whom the use of violence can be “legitimate”. “We fall into a huge trap, as we always do. High school students are demonstrating and what are we going to talk about? From the police, from LFI!” replied Olivier Faure.
Skip the ad
Everyone finally agreed to launch a “call for calm” to young high school students, making school a common priority. “The subject here is the future of these children!”, said Raphaël Glucksmann, who proposes, for example, reducing the number of students per class. “When LFI pushes them to escalate violence, they push them to take risks even though they know full well that they will not be able to give them anything,” continued Ségolène Royal, promising a “quiet France” in yet another nod to François Mitterrand.
Purchasing power, salaries, taxes… Disagreements over the reduction in the CSG
Two camps still disagree on the response to the fuel crisis. On the one hand, Ségolène Royal recommends lowering taxes on gasoline and reducing the liter to 1.6 euros for everyone. On the other hand, Raphaël Glucksmann advocates, conversely, targeted measures to help “those who need it most”, in particular with energy checks. “Who benefits first from aid? It’s Carrefour and Total. We water, we sprinkle. We should choose to help people in difficulty,” argued the primary favorite.
More broadly, the MEP proposes lowering the Generalized Social Contribution (CSG) to bring the gross salary closer to the net. A measure, he explains, that he would finance by taxing “mega inheritances” of more than two million euros. Even if it means attracting the wrath of Olivier Faure and Ségolène Royal, who both consider this solution “dangerous”. The first secretary, for whom this proposal is close to what the “liberals” defend, estimated that it would amount to giving responsibility for salaries to the State rather than to “employers”. “It’s transferring a social contribution to the state budget,” added Ségolène Royal. It will fit into the overall state budget. And then from one day to the next, when the State runs out of money, it will say: “Ah well finally, there is not enough money”.
“Let’s start with the indexation of the minimum wage to inflation,” continued Emmanuel Maurel, who continued to take on the role of unifier during the three hours of debate. “There are social minimums which are below the minimum wage. We must also make Social Security breathe!” continued the deputy from the republican and socialist left. Caught in a vice by his four competitors, Raphaël Glucksmann regretted that his camp had lost the “vote of workers” from private companies. “We have lost them because we have nothing to offer them that is tangible and that responds to this concern, this anxiety which is that of low wages,” he lamented.
Royal isolated on Ukraine, heated clashes over the qualification of “genocide” in Gaza
Like last week, Ségolène Royal once again found herself alone against everyone on the war in Ukraine. The former presidential candidate continues to advocate the “link of dialogue” and the establishment of a “permanent negotiation commission”, reproaching some – without saying it Raphaël Glucksmann – for “hard-line” positions. “There is still this very strong temptation to present the invasion of Ukraine as simply being a Russian-Ukrainian story,” replied the former essayist, who called not for “dialogue” like his competitor but for “resist.”
Skip the ad
The previously peaceful exchanges lost their civility when Olivier Faure himself addressed the conflict in the Middle East, putting the word “genocide” back at the heart of the debate. “Like Pedro Sanchez in Spain, I will denounce a genocide because the words must be used,” said the first secretary, like a pole extended to his comrades who refuse to do so. “I find it distressing that you got caught up in this semantics,” replied Jérôme Guedj, while denouncing the “war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been committed.”
“What you (Olivier Faure) are doing is obscene,” added Raphaël Glucksmann, who also refuses to use the word genocide. The MEP did not hesitate to raise his voice to ask his former ally to “listen” to him, even if it meant overplaying the duel between him and the first secretary. “So your fight is what I use that term. My fight is for Netanyahu to pay for his crimes, for him to be brought before international justice,” the social democrat added.
Between Faure and Glucksmann, unsurpassable differences on the relationship with the Insoumis
Here again, the two former allies, who have constantly interrupted each other, are struggling to find common points. Raphaël Glucksmann, joined on this point by Jérôme Guedj, explained that his doctrine was “incompatible” with that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, through his excesses, threatens, according to him, to make the left “lose” in the face of Marine Le Pen. “If we end up with a second round of this kind, it is Marine Le Pen who will win,” replied Olivier Faure, who poses as a “unifier” of the left.
“You know, what you are doing there is that you are inhabited by the spirit of defeat,” the MEP told him. You are inhabited by the spirit of defeat.” “But not at all,” brushed off the boss of the socialists. Before being taken to task by Jérôme Guedj, fierce opponent of an alliance with the Insoumis: “You and I broke up on principles of values because of the sterility of all connections with LFI. You put the whole left and all of us around the table in trouble because of this,” he said.
“It’s a bit of a loser’s attitude to consider that we still have to talk about Mélenchon in the legislative elections when we haven’t even made it through the first round of the presidential election,” Emmanuel Maurel was content to whisper, while estimating that a victory for Marine Le Pen would force the entire left to come together around a “republican front.” In the background during the last part of the debate, Ségolène Royal said she was “capable” of “quickly” building an alliance with “the left-wing parties, the environmentalists and the Communist Party”.
