French leaders take part in TV debate ahead of first round snap legislative elections

Three days before France’s first round snap legislative elections to choose all 577 members of the National Assembly, French television has hosted a debate featuring three major party and coalition leaders.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of the ruling Renaissance party, National Rally president Jordan Bardella and Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, representing the New Popular Front, coalition took part.

Purchasing power and domestic security were debated but it was the war in Ukraine that dominated. National Rally president Jordan Bardella said he would not let “Russian imperialism absorb an allied state like Ukraine” but repeated that he would refuse to send French soldiers to Ukraine if he became Prime Minister.

“My position on this conflict is very simple. I have upheld it throughout this European campaign. It is one of support to Ukraine and avoidance of escalation with Russia, which is, I remind you, a nuclear power,” he said.

Those comments were an apparent rebuttal to President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks in May in which he said he hadn’t ruled out putting French boots on the ground in Ukraine if Russia breaks through the frontlines.

Olivier Faure also blasted Macron’s remarks saying not even the Ukrainians expected French troops to fight alongside them.

“It is absolutely useless. And when the President of the Republic proposed it, he simply succeeded in dividing the Europeans and even worse. In sending Putin information that he did not yet have, which is that the Europeans are not prepared to go to the ground,” he said.

Faure insisted that the New Popular Front coalition would be against sending troops to Ukraine, but would not be opposed to sending long-range missiles to the country.

But Macron’s position was defended by his Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“When we fight for Ukraine, we fight to defend our values, we fight to defend their freedom, but we also fight for our daily lives. What the President of the Republic did, was to simply recall that faced with a Vladimir Putin who does not set any red lines, if we started by setting red lines for ourselves, then we would be doing a disservice to Ukraine,” he said.

The snap parliamentary elections were called by Emmanuel Macron on June 9, the night his Renaissance party lost big to the far-right National Rally in the EU elections.

Latest polling shows the far-right National Rally in the lead with 36%, followed by the left-wing coalition New Popular Front at 27%. Macron’s Renaissance party is trailing, polling at just 20%.

On Monday, Macron warned French voters that political “extremes” could lead “to civil war.”

The first round of voting takes place on June 30 with the second round scheduled for July 7.