France's presidential hopefuls show little enthusiasm for AI debate in Marseille

A "major debate" with few of the presidential candidates in attendance: For the artificial intelligence conference held in Marseille on Friday and Saturday, broadcasters BFM-TV and Brut and the newspaper La Tribune invited France's political parties and their leading figures to debate AI. Few accepted, choosing to send representatives instead.

Despite being announced as participants, center-left candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, far-right Jordan Bardella and former conservative prime minister Dominique de Villepin did not attend Friday's two-hour debate, which was somewhat unusual and split into two parts, with different guests for each segment.

Surprisingly, the two panels did not represent the full spectrum of France's mainstream political views. The first group brought together two representatives of the far right, Sarah Knafo of Reconquête! and Rassemblement National lawmaker Alexandre Loubet, alongside Xavier Bertrand of the conservative Les Républicains, Manuel Bompard of the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI), and Socialist Olivier Faure. The second, smaller panel, featured two representatives of President Emmanuel Macron's broader centrist camp: Renaissance MP Paul Midy, speaking for presidential candidate Gabriel Attal, and MP Laurent Marcangeli of center-right Horizons, standing in for presidential candidate Edouard Philippe. They were joined by David Cormand, an MEP for the Greens.

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