French President Francois Hollande convened an emergency meeting yesterday with top government ministers after the far-right National Front emerged as France’s most popular party in voting for the European Parliament.
Hollande summoned the special meeting a day after his French Socialist Party finished a distant third in nationwide balloting.
Speaking before the meeting, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called it an “earthquake.”
“Our country has for a long time been in an identity crisis, a crisis about France’s place in Europe, Europe’s place in our country,” Valls told RTL radio yesterday.
“We need time and I demand this time,” he said. “We must not let down our guard, to refuse our responsibilities, to make place for the extreme right.”
“We are not going to add to the identity crisis, the moral crisis that France is going through,” he said, adding that this would lead to a country becoming “ungovernable.”
“Our only mission is to continue our work to repair the country. If we do not do this, we would not live up to our responsibilities,” he said
He said the election result shows the need to push through with tax and spending cuts that he contends will boost the economy and ease the pain for voters who rejected the governing party out of frustration with unemployment and economic difficulty.
However, Valls called for Europe to boost support for growth and employment policies.
“I am convinced that Europe could be reoriented to increase support for growth and employment, which it has not done in years,” he said.
The National Front led sweeping gains for far-right and Euroskeptic parties in the European Parliament elections.
Many voters cast ballots for domestic reasons, to express disappointment in mainstream national parties.
National Front leader Marine Le Pen has won over disillusioned voters from right and left, yet her party has hard edges. The party increasingly targets France’s large Muslim minority.
One National Front mayor elected sought to block the construction of a new mosque. Another wants to bar Middle Eastern sandwich shops.
At the European level, the party wants to withdraw France from the euro and eventually dismantle the EU from within.
Additional reporting by AFP
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