France's prime minister faced allegations of intentionally overshadowing the head of the ruling party's list in the European elections by making a surprise appearance on stage during her radio debate.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal walked into Franceinfo's radio debate featuring lead candidates during an exchange between the anchor and Valerie Hayer, the head of the ruling party's list for the June 9 polls.
Hayer's campaign has struggled to resonate with the public, while the French far right appears poised for a significant victory, marking a major setback for President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party.
"Hello, sorry I'm bursting onto the stage," Attal said to the audience as Hayer looked on, explaining that he wanted to address the young viewers and "encourage Valerie."
He then delivered a brief speech emphasizing that key issues like climate change "can only be tackled through Europe."
The head of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party's list for the elections Manon Aubry posted a video of the event calling it the "definition of mansplaining".
She added:"The intrusion of Mr. Attal into Ms. Hayer's interview is outrageous...just like Macron's appearance on the 8 PM news the day before the campaign ended. They humiliate their lead candidate just as they humiliate the French people and have no respect for democracy."
L'irruption de M. Attal dans l'interview de Mme Hayer est scandaleuse, tout comme le passage de Macron au 20h la veille de clôture de la campagne 🇪🇺.
— Manon Aubry (@ManonAubryFr) June 4, 2024
Ils humilient leur tête de liste comme ils humilient les Français et n'ont aucun respect pour la démocratie !#UnionPopulaire pic.twitter.com/yi0rh98mEP
LFI MP Raquel Garrido called the incident "mansplaining or, to be more precise, manterrupting", using an American English neologism coined by feminists.
National concerns
Rejecting criticism, Attal appears to have made it a habit to perform alongside Hayer. He has also joined her at rallies, warning voters that the hard-fought post-war European unity and democracy itself are under threat from rising authoritarianism.
’’Europe is mortal, because war knocks on our door as bombs are being dropped on Ukraine, on democracy, on our values, and because we know that if Russia wins it won’t stop there,″ Attal said at a rally last week.
He said Europe knows "it can’t rely on the US eternally and needs to protect itself...because challenges are multiplying, climate change, big tech, AI, and we can only face them together, the 27 of us.”
While EU voters are choosing members of the European Parliament, many are making decisions based on national concerns – and in France, many are expected to use their ballots to express frustration with Macron’s management of the economy, the farm sector, and security in a country about to host the Paris Olympics.
On the left, polls show a surprising resurgence of France’s Socialist Party behind its lead candidate, Raphael Glucksmann, who pledges a more ambitious climate policy and protections for European businesses and workers.
Macron sidelined France’s once-powerful Socialists and mainstream conservative Republicans when he rose to power in 2017 by staking out a middle ground.
But frustration among left-wing voters with Macron’s toughening security and immigration policies, and with the staunch pro-Palestinian stance of the influential far-left France Unbowed party, has driven some back toward the traditional Socialists.
Russia's president, Gulf leaders and other oil powers can ‘’cut supplies of gas or oil, but they can’t prevent the wind from blowing in (the French Atlantic town of) Saint-Nazaire and the sun from shining in Marseille. We will earn our freedom back by completing the environmental transformation,″ Glucksmann told followers last week.
Still, it's Le Pen, runner-up to Macron in the last two presidential elections, who is expected to benefit the most from France’s protest vote, even more so than her party did in the last EU elections in 2019.
Le Pen, whose father and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was repeatedly convicted of racism and anti-semitism, no longer calls for extreme measures like quitting the EU and the euro. Instead, she aims to weaken the EU's powers from within.
"Across Europe, national parties are rising up not to destroy the European Union, but to build a European alliance of nations capable of facing up to the industrial, environmental, migratory and technological challenges of the 21st century,″ Le Pen told party followers. “Across France and across Europe, we are winning the battle.''
(With newswires)
