'Mon amour' top social media moment in French-language debate: Facebook

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe at the final French-language debate on Friday, Oct. 2, 2015.

A slip of the tongue caught the most attention on social media during the federal leaders’ French-language debate Friday night, according to Facebook.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe questioned Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau about how much humanitarian aid the last Liberal government had committed.

"You'd like to return to the past. History lessons, my love -- my friend," Trudeau said in French, confusing “mon ami” with “mon amour.”

Twitter Canada said that same moment generated the most tweets in the debate, with 895 posts sent between 8:44 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. ET – right after Trudeau’s “mon amour.”

Meanwhile, the most discussed issue on Facebook during the debate was the economy:

Twitter Canada said the economy was the second most tweeted issue, with the most people posting about the niqab.

Leaders buzz on Facebook

Ahead of Friday’s debate, Facebook released demographic information of the people driving the conversation on each of the five major party leaders on the social networking platform since June 1.

The Facebook data does not specify in what context party leaders are being mentioned, only the age and gender of those commenting.

In a breakdown by age, Stephen Harper led the pack in the 45 and under age group, with nearly 60 per cent of that demographic mentioning the Conservative leader on Facebook.

Justin Trudeau followed, with 57 per cent of the 45 and under crowd mentioning the Liberal leader.

In contrast, people discussing Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe tended to be 45 or older (56. 6 per cent).