France’s Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are less than a week away from finding out which one voters favor for president. They’re campaigning and debating.<\/b>
\nFrench presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen faced off in a combative live television debate that veered into ill-tempered exchanges on Wednesday evening.
Finding no subject on which they could agree, the pair clashed over how to deal with unemployment, terrorism, taxes and health provisions.
Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Front, accused the centrist Macron of being soft on terrorism. Macron said the terrorist threat was the priority for years to come. She insisted those on security lists for having fundamentalist sympathies must be immediately expelled, and those with dual nationality should be stripped of their French citizenship. Macron responded that those with suicidal intentions did not care much about their nationality.
Macron repeated several times that Le Pen was \u201ctalking nonsense.\u201d
At one point, when Le Pen called for cheaper medicines, Macron retorted that 80% of drugs were made abroad and since she wanted to tax imports, this would make them more expensive.
The pair continued to snipe at each other in a fractious display of opposing views.
Summing up, the nationalist Le Pen said: \u201cPeople may say I’m old-fashioned, but I like France as it is, with its culture, heritage, language and borders. Without these borders we aren’t free and independent. Mr Macron, you want France to be open to mass immigration just so you can put downward pressure on wages. … That’s your plan to weaken France.\u201d
In a blistering response in which he called Le Pen \u201ca parasite, \u201d Macron responded: \u00ab\u00a0Marine Le Pen, your tactic is to sully the reputation of your adversary. You don’t care about the country. It is all falsification and lying.\u2026 I want a real renewal of France, a new face for France, and one that is not extreme right. The country deserves better.\u00a0\u00bb
Just four days from Sunday\u2019s second-round runoff, both candidates were hoping the face-to-face debate \u2014 the only one planned \u2014 would persuade the 18% of French voters who are still undecided or said they would not bother to vote, according to an Elabe opinion poll.
Various opinion polls concur that Macron is on track to win. Heading into the debate, he was favored by about 60% of voters, with Le Pen trailing at 40%, figures that have remained stable since the first-round vote on April 23.
Both candidates are looking to pick up support from the two main defeated candidates, conservative Francois Fillon and the hard left\u2019s Jean-Luc Melenchon. The candidate of the ruling Socialist Party, Benoit Hamon, came fifth in the first round vote. Fillon and Hamon have endorsed Macron. Melenchon, regarded as a French Bernie Sanders, has been fiercely criticized for refusing to support either candidate, although he has urged his supporters not to give \u201cone single vote\u201d to Le Pen.
Macron vs. Le Pen: The French presidential candidates in their own words \u00bb
Macron, an independent running with the En Marche! (Let\u2019s Go!) political movement, had promised the debate would be \u201chand-to-hand combat, \u201d with the aim of exposing the holes in Le Pen\u2019s anti-Europe, anti-euro, anti-immigration program that he has described as \u201cdangerous.\u201d
In recent days, Le Pen has appeared backtrack on pledges to pull France out of the euro currency and return to the French franc, and to organize a Brexit -style referendum on France leaving the European Union. These proposals are popular with her National Front supporters, but have alienated her from mainstream conservative voters whose ballots she needs to win on Sunday.
Le Pen\u2019s avowed aim was to portray her rival, who has never held an elected post, as naive, inexperienced and a clone of the deeply unpopular Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, France\u2019s outgoing president, in whose government Macron served as finance minister. Since the first-round vote 10 days ago, Le Pen has launched increasingly aggressive attacks on Macron, who supports the EU and the global economy, accusing him of representing the \u201cParis elite\u201d against the ordinary French person.
Every aspect of the debate, which ran longer than 2 1\/2 hours in prime time, had been agreed to by the candidates or subject to a random draw. Macron sat to the left of the screen, Le Pen to the right, exactly 8.2 feet apart; she drew to speak first and Macron to conclude.
It was broadcast on the state television station France 2 and the private channel TF1. It had stiff competition from a major European soccer final, the Champions Cup, between Monaco and the Italian club Juventus that was being broadcast at the same time.
Before the debate, Le Pen went on the offensive with an acerbic tweet.
\u201cIf Mr Macron doesn\u2019 t feel comfortable, he can always ask Fran\u00e7ois Hollande to come and hold his hand. I wouldn\u2019 t object, \u201d she wrote.
Throughout the campaign she has frequently referred to Macron\u2019s background as a former Rothschild banker. Nicolas Lebourg, an expert on European far-right parties and member of the Jean-Jaur\u00e8s political think tank, said she was using the usual \u201cspoken codes of anti-Semitism.\u201d
His colleague, Jean-Yves Camus, said he had been shocked by the \u201crhetorical violence\u201d of the election campaign, particularly from Le Pen.
\u201cThe way she describes her rivals shows she regards him not just a political adversary but someone who is her enemy, \u201d he said.
If Macron, 39, wins as expected, he will become France\u2019s youngest president. His first challenge will be to form a political party and find candidates across the country to stand for legislative elections to the French parliament.
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Willsher is a special correspondent.
UPDATES:
3: 35 p.m.: This article has been updated with candidates\u2019 closing statements.
This article was originally posted at 3: 25 p.m.<\/p>\n

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