ABSTRACT
In France, since the first 1974 debate between François Mitterrand and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, televised debates between the two candidates for the final round of the election have become one of the highlights of presidential campaigns, as in the U.S. Similarly, the strong correlation between the better performer in the debate and the election result made those debates appear decisive. But, looking back at past French presidential debates shows that on most occasions they hardly changed the outcome of the election as predicted by the previous polls. It appears that the leader in the polls nearly always performs better in the debate than his opponent who is unable to catch up. Particular attention is then focused on what happened in 2017, since not one, but 11 televised debates occurred, including, for the first time, two debates before the first round of the election. Two questions then arise. Was this multiplication of debates influential in the outcome, and has the pattern of the final debate changed from that of the past final debates? Has the multiplication of politicians taking part in this profusion of debates led to a more democratic process? The answer might not be what one would expect, while nonetheless showing that the role of television during campaigns, specifically television debates, is far from disappearing despite the rise of the Internet and social media.
