French Prime Minister Gabriel Atal accused in a televised debate his political opponents from the far right and the left of making unfulfillable promises to the voters before the first round of early parliamentary elections, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA.
"The difference between me and my rivals is that as prime minister I don't want to lie to the French. I don't want to shoot stars out of the sky," Attal said in the 90-minute long debate.
It was attended by leading figures from the three main political blocs in sociological surveys - "National Assembly", "New People's Front" and "Renaissance".
Atal was under pressure from his far-right opponent Jordan Bardela, who constantly interrupted him. He said he had lost the trust of voters and accused him of speaking in a mentoring tone.
The Chairman of the "National Assembly" Bardella, who has expressed a desire to become the "minister of purchasing power", opened the debate by outlining the situation with electricity bills, which he said was worrying millions of people. He repeated his promise to reduce VAT on energy and fuels.
Atal got into an argument with him over his landmark proposal to reduce the cost of living. The prime minister asked him several times how he plans to finance the measure, which, according to him, will cost much more than the 12 billion euros that Bardella talked about. The chairman of the party "National Assembly" replied that Atal, who is leading the campaign of the "Renaissance" presidential party camp, does not have any credibility on the issue of public finances. "I hear you, Mr. Atal, how you get us for budgetary discipline despite the fact that you have the biggest debt in the eurozone and have run a budget deficit of 5.4 percent," Bardella said, adding that France was "almost bankrupt." ;.
The 28-year-old politician, who led Marine Le Pen's successful European election campaign earlier this month, has also come under fire. "The truth is that in the last 10 days he has given up little by little all the measures to reduce the cost of living that were included in his manifesto," said Manuel Bompard, the candidate of the "New Popular Front" coalition, which unites the left and the far left. parties.
Bardella, who promised to lower the retirement age to 60 for those who started working before they turned 20, was asked to clarify what a person whose career started at 24 should do. He replied that such a person could to retire at 66. It was the first time Bardella had mentioned such an advanced age and it sparked a backlash on social media, Reuters noted.
Atal scoffed at Bardella's promise to abolish income tax on people under 30. According to him, it makes no sense to exempt the taxes of rich young professionals such as one of the great stars of French football, Kylian Mbappe, who recently signed a contract with the leading Spanish club "Real Madrid".
"Kylian Mbappe was wrong to go to Madrid. He should have stayed here, as he would have stopped paying taxes with you,'' said Atal.
/BT/
Source: www.bta.bg