French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Wednesday face off in a high stakes election debate that could prove decisive in swaying the undecided voters they’re both chasing. It’s a rematch of their 2017 contest, but don't expect a replay.
This evening's live televised debate is the only direct encounter between the two rivals ahead of the runoff on 24 April.
The stakes are high, and not just because millions of French will be scrutinising their performances. Between them, Macron and Le Pen won just 51 percent of the vote in the first round – so 49 percent of the electorate didn't vote for either.
In particular, the candidates are scrambling for a share of the 7.7 million people who voted for hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Recent polls put Macron in the lead for the runoff with between 53 and 56 percent against 44 and 47 percent for Le Pen. But the poll's margin of error along with undecided voters and abstentions could yet swing the result.
Forget the fiasco
The pair's previous debate on 3 May, 2017, was a memorable fiasco for Le Pen. She appeared ill-prepared, got flummoxed and mixed up her notes when questioned about her economic plans.
The fresh-faced Macron, a former economy minister, came across as cool and collected. When she became aggressive and mock-scary he told her to "stop being ridiculous".
She slipped four points following the debate and was trounced in the election – winning just 33 percent of the vote.
"The debate was a failure, for which I paid a heavy price," she told France Info radio in March this year.
Ready to wield power
This time she’s leaving nothing to chance.
"Having gone through failure, appearing ridiculous and lacking credibility, she's not going to adopt the same strategy at all, of that we're sure," says Arnaud Mercier, a professor of political communication.
"She's taking the debate very seriously."
It's a final chance to convince voters she has moderated her anti-immigration party into a mainstream force that has the credibility to run the country.
On Tuesday Le Pen suspended campaigning in order to do some preparing.
"In my head, I'm ready to wield power," she told French television.
Incumbent blues
Macron will likely seek to portray her as a dangerous extremist who cannot be trusted on foreign policy – not least after Russia's invasion of Ukraine – given the admiration she has expressed for President Vladimir Putin.
He will seize on her proposal to hold constitutional referendums on tougher immigration laws, and her plan for "national priority", both of which suggest she is "above the Constitution" he said this week.
But compared to 2017 this debate risks being a very different and tricky match for the incumbent President.
"He's no longer the new kid on the block within the French political system, embodying a form of rupture and modernity," Mercier told RFI. "He has a record and he has to defend himself."
His term in office – marked by the Yellow Vest protest movement, Covid crisis and most recently the Ukraine war – has been tumultuous to say the least.
The Yellow Vests in particular portrayed Macron as "someone who is very arrogant, disdainful, even dangerous", says Mercier. The President now faces an "anti-Macron vote".
"Marine Le Pen will try to make Macron feel ill at ease, talking about his record and his poor image in the eyes of some French people, in order to put him in a very defensive position."
Showdown
The debate between the two election rounds has been a political tradition in France since 1974, when Socialist François Mitterrand took on centrist Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
The concept was imported from the US but unlike the American model, where Republican and Democratic candidates spar at least twice, France’s frontrunners get only one chance to take each other apart on live TV.
"The French model is very different from the US; it's closer to the duel in a Western," Mercier says. "Right down to the scenography, with the two candidates facing one another across the table and journalists in the middle facing the camera."
But that doesn’t mean pistols drawn, or even a slanging match. Debates tend to be lost not won, as the Le Pen debacle in 2017 showed.
Such debates "have never been decisive, it's always the confirmation of a campaign dynamic," historian and political analyst Jean Garrigues told France Info.
Defensive play
Mercier anticipates the debate won't be overly aggressive seeing as both candidates would be better off "remaining in defensive positions".
That doesn’t sound like riveting TV.
Viewing figures for the debate have gone down with each election since the record in 1981, when 30 million watched Mitterrand finally get the better of his arch-rival VGE.
In 2017 only 16.5 million tuned in – the lowest score ever.
Mercier is betting on higher figures for this evening's rematch largely due to "curiosity" over how the duo will fare compared to last time, as well as the relatively narrow gap which suggests things could move.
Both candidates have modified their policies in the last week as they've come into contact with people on campaign walkabouts.
Macron has given ground on raising the legal age of retirement to 65, and promised to do more for the environment. Le Pen has admitted her party's proposed ban on the Muslim hijab in public places was a "complex problem" requiring parliamentary debate.
They could have a few fresh announcements up their sleeves on Wednesday – if only to test their opponent's powers of improvisation.
