The French prime minister has been accused of deliberately trying to outdo her support in the European Parliament elections by suddenly appearing on the podium of top French political parties taking part in a radio debate.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal made a brief appearance on France Info radio with the main candidates during a live exchange between him and Valérie Ayyer, head of the ruling party’s list for the June 9 elections.
Heyer has largely failed to garner public support in an election campaign that could see victory for France’s far-right and deal a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance party.
“Hello, sorry for suddenly coming on stage,” Attal said to the audience as Heyer looked on, before addressing the young people watching and saying it was important to “encourage Valerie.”
Later, in a short speech, he said many key challenges, such as climate change, “can only be solved through Europe”.
Asked by the moderator if he was worried about Heyer in the election, Attal replied: “I’m worried about Europe”, pointing to the rise of the far-right.
“This is the new ‘call a friend’ lifeline. [Hayer] “It seems to be being used more and more,” said François-Xavier Bellamy, the conservative Republican candidate who spoke next in the debate, referring to the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”
“Obviously the people around her think they’re better at campaigning. There’s a bit of a macho aspect to all of this,” he said.
Manon Aubry, head of the far-left party Un Fold France’s (LFI) list of candidates for the general election, posted a video of the event, calling it “the definition of mansplaining.”
LFI councillor Raquel Garrido called the incident “mansplaining, or more accurately, manta-rapting”, using a term coined by feminists in American English.
Attal had already faced accusations of blatantly outdoing the head of his party’s candidate list when he took part in a televised debate last month with Jordan Bardella, the leadership candidate of the far-right National Rally (RN), instead of Heyer.
The 28-year-old’s challenge to Mr Attal, 35, who is France’s youngest ever prime minister and its first openly gay prime minister, is seen as a battle for control of French politics for the next generation.
Marine Le Pen, a three-time RN presidential candidate, called the incident “a real shame”, adding that Attal “would never have tolerated this if the candidate had been a man”.
But in her article in X, Heyer slammed critics who accused Attal of being sexist.
“Using the feminist cause as a tool only hurts it. Real sexism is trusting that you will think for me,” she wrote, adding that she was “proud” to have Attal “on my side” in the campaign.
But the incident is the latest setback for the ruling party’s campaign in an election where opinion polls show the RN receiving more than double the votes than Renaissance.
A further blow came last weekend when ratings agency S&P downgraded France’s sovereign debt rating.
An Ipsos poll released on Monday showed 33% of people are likely to vote for the RN list in the June 9 vote, with Renaissance narrowly ahead of the trailing Socialist Party on 16%.
The government faced two motions of confidence in parliament on Monday, submitted by the LFI and the RN.
However, neither candidate reached the 289-vote majority needed to topple the government, as Republicans refused to endorse either candidate.
