PARIS: Seven of the leading candidates in the increasingly tight and crowded race to succeed President Emmanuel Macron clashed on Thursday in their first debate, eight months ahead of the election.

The candidates, spanning the hard left to far right, agreed that France was facing economic trouble, at a debate organized by the country’s employer’s federation MEDEF.

But at Paris’s Roland Garros complex, more used to hosting clashes between top tennis stars than between politicians, they differed wildly over how to combat the country’s problems.

Marine Le Pen, seeking the presidency at her fourth attempt and riding high in the polls, announced her far-right National Rally (RN) party would present a 125 billion euro ($146 billion) cost-cutting plan and acknowledged there was a “general consensus on the seriousness of the situation.”

But hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon urged business leaders to “raise wages” to prevent France from “falling into recession” and slammed “tax giveaways” under Macron which he alleged equalled the sum of the entire deficit.

Centrist hopeful Edouard Philippe, a former premier under Macron, accused Melenchon of seeking to “burn” France’s debt and take steps that would “result in France being shut out of the banking system.”

‘Quite surprising’

The debate comes less than eight months ahead of the 2027 election to choose France’s new leader, with centrist incumbent Macron having served the maximum two consecutive terms.

Given France’s two-round election system, there is growing concern that a plethora of candidates on the center, center-left, center-right and right could split the moderate vote in the first round.

This could send Le Pen and Melenchon, who like his far-right rival is making a fourth crack at the presidency, into a run-off devoid of the traditional parties.

A new poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial projected that hard-left Melenchon could make the second round against Le Pen, who is far ahead in polls for the first round.

On the center, two of Macron’s former prime ministers in Philippe and Gabriel Attal are both campaigning hard, with neither wanting to give way for the other.

The campaign on the left has been galvanized by the entry of the center-left former commentator-turned-MEP Raphael Glucksmann, who intends to take part in a primary with the Socialist Party in October to find the best candidate.

Glucksmann also took part in the debate, along with Bruno Retailleau of the right-wing Republicans (LR) and Greens leader Marine Tondelier.

Referring to Attal and Philippe, Glucksmann quipped: “It is actually quite surprising to be lectured on debt by two of Emmanuel Macron’s former prime ministers.”