Alain Peyrefitte, Minister of Information, decided to enact the rule that rival candidates will dispose of the same amount of time to speak.
[1] The first such televised debate occurred between François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1974, on the ORTF, and was presented by Jacqueline Baudrier and Alain Duhamel.
During the most famous moment of the debate, Chirac declared to Mitterrand: "Allow me to say that this evening, I am not the Prime minister, and you are not the President of the Republic: we are two candidates... equals... and that submit themselves to the judgment of the French... the only one that counts.
[10] A debate between François Fillon, Benoît Hamon, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon took place 20 March, hosted by TF1 and moderated by journalists Anne-Claire Coudray and Gilles Bouleau.
[12] According to an Elabe poll, Macron was judged the winner, with 29% of viewers interviewed finding him most convincing, followed by Mélenchon at 20%, Le Pen and Fillon at 19%, and Hamon at 11%.
[13] A Harris Interactive survey among those who had heard of the debate found that Macron at 20%, Le Pen at 18%, Fillon at 17%, Mélenchon at 13%, and Hamon at 6%,[14] and an OpinionWay poll found Macron at 25%, Fillon at 20%, Le Pen at 18%, Mélenchon at 17%, and Hamon at 8% among debate viewers.
[15] The TV debate prior to the second and final round, between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, occurred on 3 May 2017.