PARIS — No clear winner emerged as seven French presidential contenders sparred in their first debate ahead of next year’s election on the main court at Roland-Garros, home of the French Open. The event, organized by the powerful employers’ lobby MEDEF, ran more than an hour over its scheduled time as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Tondelier, Raphaël Glucksmann, Gabriel Attal, Edouard Philippe, Bruno Retailleau and Marine Le Pen — the race’s current front-runner — answered questions on matters affecting French industry. Fault lines on EU policy emerged hours after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her speech at the same event to defend her pitch for the bloc’s massive, €2 trillion spending plan.
Philippe — a center-right candidate who was President Emmanuel Macron’s prime minister from 2017 to 2020 — lambasted the EU leader’s decision to sign a “pitiful treaty in Scotland” with U.S. President Donald Trump, referring to the Turnberry trade deal, while lauding Mark Carney’s resolve in dealing with Trump. He also threw his support behind an EU-wide capital markets union.
Glucksmann, a center-left MEP, said that France had failed to seize on the current geopolitical situation to take control of a more strategically autonomous Europe, a gospel long preached by Macron. But to do that, it must stop being afraid — afraid to defend its interests,” Glucksmann said. Mélenchon, who has long criticized the EU as a vehicle for unbridled German-style capitalism, countered that the EU would not be able to impose its strength vis-à-vis global powerhouses like the U.S. and China while remaining attached to “free and undistorted competition and free trade ideology.” Mélenchon said that if elected, France would “disobey” EU rules on trade and economic policy.
He also doubled down on his calls to rewrite the treaties that underpin the bloc. The famously Euroskeptic Le Pen, who previously wanted France to leave the EU, said as president she would slash Paris’ contribution to Brussels by €5 billion. A burning question heading into the campaign season has been the extent to which Le Pen and her far-right party, the National Rally, would tweak its populist economic platform to broaden its appeal to a wider base of right-leaning voters.
The party was expected to pursue more business-friendly policies when it appeared that Le Pen would be barred from running due to her embezzlement conviction and would be forced to hand the reins to her 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella. But a July court ruling unexpectedly cleared a path for her to stand in the contest, throwing the party’s economic platform into doubt. Shortly before the debate started, French daily Le Figaro reported that investor François Durvye, who had been brought in by Le Pen’s second-in-command Jordan Bardella as an economic adviser, would not be taking part in the campaign, signaling a shift away from the pro-business line pushed by Bardella.
At the debate, Le Pen hewed toward her long-standing policies — which have been criticized as unrealistic — while also including some offerings that would please the business community. She pledged to implement €125 billion in savings, which she said could be achieved by cutting spending on immigration, reducing the number of state agencies and reducing France’s EU contributions. On pensions, she confirmed her plans to bring the minimum retirement age back down to 62 for most workers, reversing Macron’s contentious 2023 reform — an issue that has provoked internal debate within the National Rally.
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