VIDEO. European elections 2024: follow live the highly anticipated debate between Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella

Un temps fort de la campagne des européennes. Montage Midi Libre – Photos MAXPPP

Follow live the televised duel between the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, and the head of the RN list, Jordan Bardella, this Thursday, May 23, 2024 from 8:15 p.m. on France 2.

17 days before the European elections, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal enters the ring to try to limit the damage for the Macronist list, in a televised duel with far-right candidate Jordan Bardella , who is leading the polls.

The two young leaders – 35 years for the Prime Minister, 28 years for the head of the National Rally (RN) list -, are two media and ambitious personalities, and their confrontation this Thursday, May 23, 2024 from 8 p.m. ;15, announced for weeks, will be carefully scrutinized.

Gabriel Attal, who until now has not been much involved in the European campaign, was mandated by President Emmanuel Macron to redress the situation while the polls are poor for the list of the presidential majority. Led by Valérie Hayer, unknown to the general public, it stagnates at 15% of voting intentions, closely followed by the socialist list led by Raphaël Glucksmann, at 14.5%.

The latter, excluded from the debate, also denounced "a kidnapping" of the election. The socialists, like the right-wing opposition, contacted the audiovisual regulator to demand equal treatment between the different heads of the list, Mr. Attal not being a candidate for the European.

Mr. Glucksmann launches Thursday afternoon in Paris, in the presence of Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans, leader of the opposition to the government agreement concluded between the liberals and the extreme party right PVV, a "call for resistance against the European extreme right", already published in several European media.

"We undertake to build a strong barrier against the extreme right in the European Parliament and in national Parliaments", write the signatories, who also include the leader of the Belgian socialists Paul Magnette, the Luxembourg European commissioner Nicolas Schmit, and the Spanish president of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament Iratxe García .

Demonization

Jordan Bardella, for his part, is well ahead in voting intentions at 31.5%, after a campaign conducted on essentially national themes – purchasing power, insecurity, immigration -, fueling the criticism of its detractors who point to its lack of knowledge of European issues.

Gabriel Attal is not deprived of it, ironically Wednesday evening during a meeting with Valérie Hayer: during the debate on France 2, Thursday evening , "something a little exceptional could happen: maybe he (Jordan Bardella) will talk about Europe" .

"Maybe he will be able to have a real discussion about the European Union and its future, rather than to take refuge behind slogans or, each time he is in difficulty, to start spouting untruths, to change the subject", insisted the Prime Minister.

"Beyond Jordan Bardella, we want to show that the RN has the worst project for Europe and that we are the only ones to carry a truly Europhile project, and to have a positive outcome", according to a majority source.

In the far-right camp, it is estimated that Jordan Bardella should have "the same attitude" towards at Attal than during his televised debate at the beginning of May with Valérie Hayer, where he was not put in difficulty.

The RN is also pleased to be elevated to the rank of main adversary and thus continues its strategy of demonization, begun a decade ago by Marine Le Pen, breaking with the racist and anti-Semitic outbursts of the party founded by her father Jean- Marie Le Pen in 1972.

In this perspective, the National Rally has just broken with its sulphurous German allies in the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), who are accumulating slip-ups, and suggests a rapprochement with Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, whose far-right formation Fratelli d’Italia is a member of the group of European Conservatives and Reformists (CRE).

Until now, the RN sits in Strasbourg within the Identity and Democracy group, alongside the AfD. This group is the subject of a "sanitary cordon" within the European Parliament, none of the other European political groups being ready to ally with it.

On a national level, the debate with Attal youtu, welcomes a party executive cited by Le Parisien. Marine Le Pen, very likely candidate for the 4th time in the presidential election in 2027, promised him the position at Matignon.

In order to interest young people in the vote, the debate will also be broadcast on the YouTube news channel Hugodecrypte, which has 2.66 million views. rsquo;subscribers, and on that of "C quoi l’info ?", program of the public television group, France Télévisions.