Thread by @MarlonEttinger

I'm going to be livetweeting this debate in English - follow along if you're interested in understanding the French presidential campaign. #MelenchonVsZemmour

https://twitter.com/MarlonEttinger/status/1441108124853698567

The presenter is saying that Mélenchon prepared by watching all of Zemmour's speeches.
#MelenchonVsZemmour

The two men are both in the studio right now chatting with some people waiting for the debate to start while the pundits drone on about how this marks the beginning of the presidential campaign.
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"The extreme right today is very strong," says Pierre Jacqueman, talking about the failed strategy of not debating with the extreme right.
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"I appreciate him, I spend time with him, and I hope to see him tomorrow," says Marion Marechal in the crawl on the bottom.
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31% judge Zemmour credible on immigration, 20% for
Mélenchon. 82% of those polled say they don't trust Zemmour, 80% Mélenchon.
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Debate is starting now. Hosts say there will be a few themes, like buying power, the environment, security. Fact checking team says they're standing by and will intervene.
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First question for Zemmour - why did he accept the debate. "Because I think debate is democracy...I am for debate...even for shocking ideas...I've debated with many people...[many] refuse...Mélenchon accepted."
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Zemmour repeats his theme that the coming presidential election will be a "civilizational" one.
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Mélenchon says that the country is being progressively contaminated with the ideas of Zemmour. Says that he wants the debate not to be a "match."

"France is in its greatest social crisis in decades."
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Mélenchon says Zemmour wants to expel 5 million Muslims from the country. Zemmour says he never said that. Have you changed your mind? asks Mélenchon.
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Mélenchon says "you are a danger" for the country. "You are a racist." Zemmour is laughing and acting like he's very offended.
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The host are constantly interrupting Mélenchon. Hosts points out Zemmour and Mélenchon used to know each other socially very peripherally. Mélenchon says Zemmour radicalized and he kept his distance.
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Zemmour says Mélenchon was a Trotskyite and a Communist and that he never condemned the crimes of the USSR, or Stalin, or China, that his political tradition believes in reeducation camps and the guillotine, not democracy.
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The hosts ask the first question: France isn't well integrated, why?

"If you'd allow me to, I'll not answer your question, I'll mock it...I'm here to debate Mélenchon...I'm not an integrationist...I'm an assimilationist, and it isn't France's fault."
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Zemmour says the elites of have allowed in millions of Arab and Africans who are hostile to Christian civilization. Are you Christian? asks Mélenchon. No, he says, "but I defend Christian civilization."
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"The son, the mother, the cousin..." etc, are coming in now, says Zemmour.

"Yes, they're human beings," says Mélenchon.
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Zemmour rattling off statistics about the amount of immigrants who have come in, "and we only expel 10% of them."

"The population of a city like Paris every 5 years."
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"They say that France has always been a country of immigrants," says Zemmour. "That's false." Says they used to be Belgian, Italian, Christian...and that they used to be much less numerous than nowadays.
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Zemmour says about the Italian immigration, 3 million came in 65 years and only 1 million stayed.

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Mélenchon says he's not going to go through the statistics step by step like Zemmour. But he points out that many people who come to France don't stay. Many come to study, and Mélenchon says that makes him proud.
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"We are the only country in Europe who say we're Gallo-Roman...cultures arrive and form something else," says Mélenchon. Says the Revolution wasn't done for "the French, but for humanity....creolization isn't a choice, but a reality."

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"Creolization says human being come together and form something else together," says Mélenchon. "You won't force people to choose between Islam and France...as those once did for Jews...religion is a private affair."
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Zemmour rejects the word creolization and says it should be "assimilation." "Creolization, I don't know what they means," he says, calling it a pseudo-poetic chimera.
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"It's the new word [creolization] you've chosen to talk about multi-culturalism," says Zemmour. Islam, he says, is the exact opposite of laicite and the Republic.
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"Islam is completely at the antipodes of France," says Zemmour. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite...Islam is submission."

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Zemmour says he makes a distinction between Muslims who can accept the French form of religion, and Islam.

"I want to impose exactly on Islam what France imposed on the Jews."
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Mélenchon is now talking about the culture of the Outre-Mer to explain to Zemmour what creolization is. "It produces a common culture."
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"It's a common creation...assimilation doesn't exist, creolization does" he says.
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"Religion isn't my business," says Mélenchon again, "religion is a private affair."
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Hosts pleading to move on from the topic of religion, immigration, etc. "I don't agree," says Mélenchon.
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"Republican religion is what permits us to live in peace," Mélenchon says. "Not expelling people who have a different religion."
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3x more people die of heat each year than from violent crime, says Mélenchon. "France is...poorly organized," says Mélenchon.
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"I want a police force truly Republican who respect people," says Mélenchon. "Until that becomes the case...authority won't be recognized."
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"A French name is a name that a Frenchman has," says Mélenchon. "No," says Zemmour.
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Crime "has nothing to do with poverty," says Zemmour. Says the crimes are a jihad, "a war of rapes."
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"There are millions of Muslims who aren't terrorists," says Zemmour. But "all terrorists are Muslims."
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"I don't know if you've seen the film Bac-Nord," says Zemmour. "You can see the reality of France" there.
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"The population of France loves" the police, says Zemmour. Says the police are the representation of France, which is why the Islamicized sections of France don't like them.
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"Yes, I say there are racists in the police," says Mélenchon, "and their presence is unacceptable."
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"What do you call a country where the head of a teacher rolls in the street?" asks Zemmour. "I call that a civil war." He says civil wars start little by little. Says Algerians see what's happening in the country and see what's coming.
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Zemmour accuses Mélenchon of running after the votes of the "indigenistes." Says he's betrayed his former devotion to the ideals of the Republic.
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Zemmour accuses Mélenchon of defending the veil and Mélenchon calls that ridiculous, saying he's only against "hair police" stopping women in the street, and that he opposes the veil philosophically.
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Mélenchon giving a more straight ahead campaign speech to talk about disengaging from the US, going off talking about space travel and international cooperation. "The French language doesn't belong to France, but to those who speak French."
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"The common good, does that mean anything to you?" asks Mélenchon, citing the French constitution. "That's an American formula," says Zemmour.
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Zemmour says France needs to raise its military budget.
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"France isn't racist when it defends its model, when it defends its civilization...I don't want to replace the French civilization with another civilization, where you replace one population with another population."
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"I was convicted of rebellion," says Mélenchon. "You were convicted of racism."
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"Zemmouristan exists," says Mélenchon. "It's called Saudi Arabia." Actually, counters Zemmour, it's the islamicized suburbs that look like that.
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"Monsieur Mélenchon, you are the product of my idea of France...but today you announce it," says Zemmour.
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Fact-checking break coming. Zemmour says 2 million more immigrants have come in under Macron, fact checker says many leave.
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Zemmour says the number who leave are French ex-patriates, brilliant young people who leave the country because they can no longer support what's going on in France. Mélenchon scoffs in a French way loudly.
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Now they're fact-checking Mélenchon. Says only 2,1 million people benefit from food aid, not 8 million.
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"How do we reduce the social fracture?" is the next big question for the second half of the debate.
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"We aren't a poor country, we're a country that produces great riches," says Mélenchon.
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Mélenchon says Zemmour supports raising the raise of retirement to 63, 64, some people are even saying 68. Mélenchon says he supports retirement at 60.

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Mélenchon says he supports price controls on food, energy, and water.
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Zemmour says that the reason France has become poor is that China's entry into the World Trade Organization has "ravaged" the country and taken jobs.
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This section is much less interesting, Zemmour just sounding like a boring normie Les Republicans conservative talking about overspending on welfare, immigration taking a strain on the country's finance etc. "we need to reduce social aid, reduce taxes" etc.
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"I'm in favor of installing ecological protectionism," says Mélenchon. "Why do we produce corn on the other side of the world?" Mélenchon says he's in favor of food sovereignty - producing French food at home.
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Mélenchon says he supports planning, not "unlimited growth" like Zemmour does. "That's the old world."
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"I note that tonight you've renounced 'remigration,'" Mélenchon says, when Zemmour scoffs at him using the word 'deportation.'
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"Private insurance costs more than social insurance," says Mélenchon.

"In the United States," Zemmour concedes.
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"It was the right that was the first...to criticize productivism," says Zemmour.

"Ah, the gentle right in nature," Mélenchon says mockingly.
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"Ecology has been taken hostage by the extreme left," says Zemmour. "The Greens." Mélenchon groans. "Yes, the Greens are the extreme left," says Zemmour. Mélenchon scoffs again in a French way.
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Zemmour again accuses Mélenchon of flip-flopping, this time on nuclear power.
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There have been no nuclear accidents in France, says Zemmour.

Mélenchon says he's changed his mind on things, unlike Zemmour. Zemmour says he's coherent.
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"Wind power is a catastrophe," says Zemmour.

"Quit making things up," says Mélenchon.
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Mélenchon is much more compelling talking about the economy, planning, the vision of a future industry, energy production, etc. All Zemmour does is rattle off statistics - clearly out of his comfort zone. "There has never been an accident" he says a 3rd time.
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Hosts ask a boring question if they think abstention and disinterest will be high in the 2022 presidential election.
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Zemmour says abstention is indeed high. "Because of immigrants you think?" jokes Mélenchon.

"Don't mock the existential anguish of France," Zemmour says angrily.
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"I'm with the 68% of French people who no longer believe that in France they're in France anymore," says Zemmour.
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Mélenchon says he supports a constitutional revolution to defeat the "presidential monarchy" like France did in the revolution of 1789.
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Zemmour now talking about how birth rates in France are very low, and there's a disequilibrium in who's giving birth. Mélenchon laughs, Zemmour gets mad, then Mélenchon says leave me to laugh, we have the right to laugh.
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Zemmour denounces the "government of judges," who "impose their ideology" on France. He cites the European Court stopping France from deporting an Algerian terrorist.
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Zemmour accuses Mélenchon of wanting to return to the IVth Republic, parliamentarianism, and instability.

Mélenchon counters by saying look how unstable the Vth Republic has been.
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boring fact check again whatever #whocare
#MelenchonVsZemmour

Final question to end the debate: What do you imagine France looking like in 2050?
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Zemmour says if things don't change, France will become a country with more poverty, more misery, more disorder, more violence, just as it is now.

"France will be a country where little by little its people are replaced by another people."
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"To avoid the Libyazation of the country...requires a grand 'national revolution,'" says Zemmour.

Mélenchon laughs and points at himself with his thumb "Revolution populaire."
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Mélenchon says "the task is enormous, if we do nothing."

If nothing is done, Mélenchon says the coastal cities will be flooded in 2050, a million French displaced by floods every year.
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"I'm an optimist," says Mélenchon. "I don't believe all is lost."
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"There isn't solidarity between those who aren't the same people," says Zemmour.
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That's a good note to end it on. I'll discuss what I thought about the debate tomorrow. If you're interested in this stuff sign up for my newsletter, I publish it basically never: footnotesnews.substack.com
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