When the president of the RN only sees Jean-Luc Mélenchon – who nevertheless exercises neither political mandate nor official political functions – channel 15, for its part, wishes to invite a member of the New Popular Front from the ranks of “the most representative political force“on reading the results of the first round. A letter to this effect was sent by BFMTV to La France Insoumise and the Socialist Party.
Given that La France Insoumise (LFI), running in 116 constituencies, could obtain the most important results within the alliance ahead of the Socialist Party, still in the race in 101 constituencies, the Ecologists (47 constituencies), and the French Communist Party, BFMTV has its sights set on Mathilde Panot, former president of the LFI group at the Palais Bourbon, or Manuel Bompard, already taking part in the debate on June 25 on TF1.
“A first-round commitment”
Except that Marine Tondelier does not see it that way. The national secretary of the Ecologists reminds anyone who will listen that the New Popular Front decided, before the first round, on the distribution of its representatives in the televised debates.We agreed that we would each go to a debate.“, she had already explained on Public Sénat on June 20.
“Manuel Bompard will be on TF1, Olivier Faure will be on France 2, I will take care of the debate on BFMTV, which will take place between the two rounds, and the Communist Party will be our representative in the CNews debate.“. “When I go (to the BFMTV debate), I will not be the leader of the Ecologists, I will be the spokesperson for the New Popular Front.“, she was careful to specify.
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“What Marine Tondelier forgets to say is that this was a first-round commitment.“, defends the management of BFMTV to puremedias.com. “But Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella only wanted to do two debates on TF1 (June 25, editor’s note) and France 2 (June 27, editor’s note). Since this pre-first round debate could not be held, we wanted to wait for the score of each side to decide which representative of the New Popular Front to invite.“.
“Marine Tondelier turns the situation around to play the victim”
BFMTV management to assert a “journalistic” decision: “Marine Tondelier would have been the leader of the most important force in the alliance after the results of the first round, she would obviously have been invited. But it is not the politicians who decide. She turns the situation around to victimize herself“. Marine Tondelier would have, according to “Politico”, put BFMTV against the wall: “It will be her or there will be no debate.“, the newsletter writes. “François Ruffin offered to come! At the NFP, they tried to unplug her. If we wanted to hold a debate without her, we could“, tackles a member of the BFMTV management.
Residents of 501 constituencies are called to the polls this Sunday, July 7, for the second round of the legislative elections. 76 candidates were elected in the first round on June 30. Among them, the National Rally and its allies elected 39 deputies, the New Popular Front 32 deputies (20 from La France Insoumise, 5 from the Socialist Party, 5 from the Ecologists and 2 from the French Communist Party) and Ensemble pour la République 2 deputies.
Updated Tuesday, July 2 at 6:00 p.m.: BFMTV officially replaces the debate between the two rounds with a variation of “Face à BFM”.Given the impossibility of setting up a debate between the major representatives of the three blocs present for the second round of the legislative elections, the channel will offer a special evening ‘Face à BFM: A historic choice’. Gabriel Attal, Jordan Bardella, and Mathilde Panot will take turns on the air tomorrow from 8:30 p.m. and for one hour each in a randomly selected order.“, indicates the channel. The show will be presented by Maxime Switek with Apolline de Malherbe, Nicolas Doze and Benjamin Duhamel.
