By Athena Papakosta

In their first telefight ahead of the first round of the early parliamentary elections This Sunday Jordan Bardella, Manuel Bobard and Gabriel Atal they exchanged accusations for 90 minutes. Almost insistently interrupting each other, the atmosphere quickly became electrifying with their spat on the set of French channel TF1 akin to cacophony and journalists often needing to step in to moderate the proceedings.

Was there a winner? Not necessarily, since none of them managed to knock out an opponent or make a performance that will ultimately influence the vote of the French citizens.

The far right still has the upper hand in opinion polls and the National Rally party with the centrist faction of French President Emmanuel Macron remaining in third place.

After the second round of early parliamentary elections on July 7, just 28-year-old Jordan Bardela could become the youngest prime minister in French history – despite the fact that he today stressed that without an absolute majority he will not lead a fragile government minority.

The president of the National Rally, addressing the French voters, underlined that he will become the “prime minister of the purchasing power” of the French and promised cuts in the VAT on energy and fuel from 20% to 5.5% as well as tax exemptions for young people under 30 years old.

“How much will they cost and how will they be financed,” asked Gabriel Attal, 35, referring to the VAT cuts ordered by Bardela, stressing that he – unlike Bardela and Bobard – is France’s prime minister and cannot lie to the citizens of the country.

“I don’t want to make the French believe in the moon,” he said, and in turn proposed measures – among them the adjustment of pensions according to the evolution of inflation – that would allow the French, as he explained, “to earn more and spend less.”

At the same time, he mocked Bardella’s proposal for tax exemptions for those under 30, asking him “will you be exempt from this measure?” but also pointing out that “Kilian Mbappe was wrong to go to Madrid” since “he could stay here and not pay taxes”.

“I hear you Mr. Atal giving us lessons in fiscal discipline despite the fact that we have the highest debt in the eurozone because of you and a deficit of 5.4%,” Bardela said, adding that France is on the verge of bankruptcy.

For his part, the representative of the New People’s Front, the coalition of the parties of the Left, Manuel Bobard replied that Mr. Atal is unfit to teach economics courses, while for Mr. Bardela he said that the closer the polls get, the more danger for France to take office, so careful is he to forget the costly measures he has been promising for months and which gave him a poll lead.

Gabriel Atal also hit out at Bardella over his proposal to bar French dual nationals from “strategic” government posts with the head of the National Rally asking him if he would allow a Franco-Russian to head a nuclear power plant to answer Atal that Tamara Volochova, who is half French and half Russian, participated in meetings about the war in Ukraine.

On the issue of excluding French people with dual citizenship from “strategic” government positions, Bobard, addressing Bardella, who is of Italian and Algerian descent, noted that he finds it tragic that “when your ancestors arrived in France, your politicians ancestors would have thought the same as you.”

But the knives were also out on the issue of pensions, with Bardella and Bobard explaining that they will change the retirement limit from 64 years, with the head of the National Rally saying, however, that if someone started working at the age of 24, then he could to retire at the age of 66, provoking a storm of reactions.

In five days from today, the polls for the first round of early parliamentary elections in France will open, but we will not know what the next day will be in the country until the day after July 7, when the second round will have been completed.