Europeans: François-Xavier Bellamy and Pascal Canfin, a first debate organized by “Le Figaro” between two opposite headliners

The first debate of the European campaign organized by Le Figaro is unprecedented. Broadcast this Tuesday, January 30 from 9 p.m. on our website, then Thursday, February 1 on “Le Figaro TV”, it opposes for the first time the European deputies François-Xavier Bellamy, head of the Republican list for the election of June 9, and Pascal Canfin, president (Renaissance) of the environment committee of the European Parliament. The opportunity for the two men to confront their visions of the European Union in the midst of the farmers' protest movement.

In the camp of François-Xavier Bellamy, we approach this program as a means of confronting Macronism with its European record, of illuminating the fundamental differences in a concrete way, and of pointing out the fragilities of a Europe hotly contested by certain agricultural unions. On the side of Pascal Canfin, putative leader of the Macron camp with a view to the Europeans, the stated ambition is to flush out “fake news”. While trying to show that environmental and agricultural policies are not incompatible on a European scale.

For François-Xavier Bellamy, the terrain is ideal for designating the Macronist policy which he considers responsible for the regulatory excesses of the European Union. In his eyes, Pascal Canfin, former head of the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) from the Greens, can only embody a form of left-wing degrowth. A bad trial according to his interlocutor, who claims an ecology that is both “ambitious” and “pragmatic”. The agenda of reducing European agricultural production, denounced by LR? “We never voted for that,” repeats Pascal Canfin, pleading for better financing of the “agricultural transition” by “large cooperatives” and “mass distribution”.

On these questions, the two debaters will not fail to contrast their approach to Europe as an extension of a contest already underway remotely in the media and on social networks. “We will have a lot to say. This is not a debate to be taken lightly and he is an adversary to be taken seriously,” says someone close to Bellamy impatiently. Convinced that the right-wing candidate will not fail to attack the European “Green Deal”, this legislative package of around fifty texts, one of the main targets of peasant anger.

In François-Xavier Bellamy's team, as in that of Pascal Canfin, the debate was prepared based on the positions and public declarations of the opponent. It was necessary to analyze the votes, the amendments, all the legislative work already closely followed, on the eve of a confrontation of ideas which should also contribute to “bringing closer” the French to European realities. It remains to be seen what they defend and reject the most in the assessment they share at the level of the European Commission, where the right (supported by LR), the centrists (including Renaissance) and the social- Democrats must agree.