Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen did not speak about their foreign program during Wednesday night’s televised debate. But some issues with particular repercussions in the overseas territories were mentioned.
Quentin Menu • Published April 21, 2022 at 1:30 am, Updated April 21, 2022 at 5:21 am
Convincing a million ultramarine teetotalers. 330,000 French overseas voters should convince Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first ballot. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen faced each other on Wednesday April 20 during the traditional debate between the two rounds to defend their project for France and win the presidential election four days before the second round.
From purchasing power to institutions, education, secularism and the environment, the two contenders for the presidency of the Republic did not have the opportunity to expand their respective projects overseas, even if some measures mentioned during the evening particularly affected areas far from France.
Marine Le Pen slammed Emmanuel Macron, pointing to the fate of nurses who were suspended following the entry into force of the mandatory vaccination law enacted by the government earlier this year to combat Covid-19. Without a complete vaccination schedule, employees in hospitals and medico-social centers are no longer able to perform their jobs and their salaries are therefore being suspended.
“I will hire you again (…) and refund you the salary that was withheld from you,” announced the candidate. A measure that would hit particularly hard in the West Indies, where the revolt among nursing staff was strong last autumn. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, as in Guyana, the population was more skeptical than elsewhere in France about vaccines against Covid-19.
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen underlined their completely different approaches to the ecological transition – apart from the nuclear issue, which the two Élysée contenders support.
Marine Le Pen says she wants to develop the production of green hydrogen, a renewable energy that’s often dubbed the “fuel of the future” because it reduces CO2 emissions. “But Madame Le Pen, how do we do that with green hydrogen?” the outgoing President then objected. “With nuclear power,” she replies. Emmanuel Macron then emphasizes that France currently does not have the capacity to produce this environmentally friendly energy.
Mikaa Mered, secretary-general of the overseas chair at Sciences Po, a specialist in hydrogen, noted on Twitter that the two candidates are not proficient on the subject. According to the researcher, the French overseas territories play an important role in this sector and therefore in the country’s energy transition.
During the section on secularism, the journalist-moderators questioned the two candidates about whether or not they were banned from wearing the veil in public spaces, a topic that has returned to the news in recent days thanks to a campaign that stretched between the two two towers. A question that particularly affects Réunion and in particular Mayotte, a French department where the majority of the population is of the Muslim faith.
Marine Le Pen wants to ban the wearing of the headscarf in public places in France with the aim, according to her, “to fight against Islamism”. “I’m not at war with you [la religion musulmane]”, she said, but against “Islamism”. However, she has not specified whether this ban would apply to the islands of the Indian Ocean. Last month, at the invitation of Outre-mer La 1ère, she nonetheless indicated that she considered the situation between distinguishes Mayotte and France: “I think that there are real specificities for the overseas territories and that they have to be respected,” she said, hinting that the veil would remain legal in the department where she won first in the first round occupied place.
President Emmanuel Macron castigated the stigma against Muslims that such a law would bring with it. He defends the strict application of the Separation of Church and State Act of 1905 and advocates banning the wearing of religious signs in schools, but not in public places. And to point out to Marine Le Pen that her move would mean that the wearing of the yarmulke, or cross, would also be banned for Jews and Catholics, since the constitution imposes equality of citizens before the law.
The debaters concluded their more than two and a half hour long discussions on institutions. Emmanuel Macron, who particularly regretted not having organized referendums during his five-year tenure – a reproach leveled at him by Marine Le Pen – expressed a desire to consult the French more closely if he were re-elected. The President made no mention of the three New Caledonian self-determination consultations organized under his mandate.
Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, wants to introduce a citizens’ initiative referendum if she is elected president, a proposal that came from the Yellow Vests movement. In his project, 500,000 French could demand that the people be consulted on a legal text. A high threshold for the overseas territories, however, where only Réunion exceeds this number of inhabitants. Referendums, for example on the status of overseas territories, are therefore difficult to imagine. In any case, the candidate had declared herself to be negative.
On the other hand, the candidate for the Élysée announced that she would submit to the people a bill revising French migration policy, including suspending the jus soli allowing a child born on French territory to obtain French citizenship. Guyana and Mayotte are affected by significant flows of illegal immigration. Note that jus soli is already heavily restricted in Mayotte.
In his concluding remarks, the President regretted the lack of detailed discussions on the French overseas territories. From that perspective, it’s difficult to know whether the more than a million Ultramarines who didn’t move during the first round of the presidential election will have found a reason to move for next Sunday’s second round.