It is almost six years to the day since Marine Le Pen went head to head with Emmanuel Macron in a live television debate that came to be seen as the defining moment of the 2017 French presidential campaign.
It did not end well for the leader of the National Front, the party she has since rebranded as the National Rally. Le Pen was ripped apart by her young opponent on the evening of May 3. Macron combined boyish charm with a head for facts, outmanoeuvring Le Pen in every argument and on every subject.
It’s increasingly hard to find anyone in France who respects their president.
Le Pen was accused of being too aggressive and too personal, as encapsulated in her opening statement. ‘Monsieur Macron,’ she announced to the 16.5 million viewers, ‘is the candidate of unbridled globalisation, of Uberisation, of hardship, of social brutality, of the war of all against all, of the economic ransacking of our big groups, of the dismemberment of France by the big economic interests.
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