The snap election called by French President Emmanuel Macron after a bruising loss to the far-right in European Parliament elections would be the most consequential legislative vote in the republic’s history, French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said yesterday.
Many view Macron’s move as a high-risk gamble aimed at keeping the far-right National Rally (RN) out of power when his second term ends in 2027.
“I am confident in the capacity of the French people to make the right choice for themselves and for future generations,” Macron wrote on X.
Photo: Reuters
“My sole ambition is to be useful to our country that I love so much,” he said.
France will go to the polls to vote for a new National Assembly on June 30, with a second round on July 7, Macron announced late on Sunday.
He said that, including the RN, far-right parties in France managed to take almost 40 percent of the vote in the EU elections in France.
In a televised address, he warned of the danger of “the rise of nationalists and demagogues” for France and its place in Europe.
He said he knew he could count on voters to “choose to write history instead of being subjected to it”.
Macron’s shock decision amounts to a roll of the dice on his political future. It could hand a great deal of power to Marine Le Pen’s far-right NR after years on the sidelines, and neuter his presidency three years before it is due to end.
“This will be the most consequential parliamentary election for France and for the French in the history of the Fifth Republic,” Le Maire told RTL radio.
A source close to Macron said the president hoped to mobilize voters who had abstained from voting on Sunday.
“We’re going for the win,” the source said. “There’s audacity in this decision, risk-taking, which has always been part of our political DNA.”
Helmed by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, the RN won about 32 percent of the vote on Sunday, more than double the Macron ticket’s 15 percent, according to exit polls. The Socialists came within a whisker of Macron with 14 percent.
Analysts said Macron’s decision aimed to make the best of his weak position, reclaiming the initiative and forcing RN into election mode faster than it would have liked.
Some RN leaders appeared to have been caught off-guard.
“We didn’t think it would be immediately after the European elections, even if we wanted it to be,” RN Deputy Chairman Sebastien Chenu said on RTL Radio. “Elections are rarely a gift and in this context, they aren’t.”
Bardella would be the party’s candidate for prime minister, he added.
The result is hard to predict. The outcome is likely to depend on how committed leftist and center-right voters are to the idea of blocking the far-right from power. Voter turnout on Sunday was about 52 percent, the Ministry of the Interior said.
If the RN wins a majority, Macron would remain as president and direct defense and foreign policy, but he would lose the power to set the domestic agenda, from economic policy to security.
His Renaissance party currently has 169 lower house lawmakers out of a total of 577. The RN has 88.
Eurasia Group said the RN was no shoo-in for a majority, predicting a hung parliament as the most likely scenario.
“Faced with another hung parliament, [Macron] will try to form a wider alliance with the center-right or center-left, possibly by appointing a prime minister from one of those camps,” it said in a note.
“We foresee a losing struggle for serious domestic reform or strict deficit reduction in the remaining three years of Macron’s term,” it said.
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