French President Emmanuel Macron Calls Snap Elections Following EU Elections Debacle

In an unexpected move, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday the dissolution of the National Assembly and the convening of early legislative elections, generating a political earthquake after the overwhelming defeat of his party against the extreme right in the parliamentary elections Europeo.

La Macron’s decision, which comes three years before the end of his term and as France prepares to host the Olympic Games this summer, represents a risky gamble. In the European elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s National Grouping (RN) won 31.5% of the vote, according to Ipsos projections, more than double the support received by Macron’s party.

In an address to the nation, the French president claimed he could not ignore the warning of voters and announced that the elections for the National Assembly will be held on June 30, with a second round on July 7. “This is an essential moment for clarification,” Macron declared. “I have listened to your message, your concerns and I will not leave them unanswered… France needs a clear majority to act in serenity and harmony.”

Marine Le Pen’s Reaction

The announcement was greeted enthusiastically by Marine Le Pen, whose party now has its best chances to date of seizing power in the upcoming parliamentary vote. “We are ready to take power if the French people trust us in the upcoming legislative elections,” Le Pen said. “We are ready to put the country back on its feet.”

If Le Pen’s National Grouping achieves a surprising majority in the National Assembly, Macron would retain control over defense and foreign policy, but would lose the ability to set the domestic agenda, remaining the president who allowed the entry of the extreme right to power.

A setback for Macron, the centre and the left

The result of Sunday’s election means France, one of the EU’s founding members, will send the largest contingent of far-right Eurosceptic lawmakers among the bloc’s 27 members to Brussels. The National Grouping has traditionally shown good results in the European elections, topping the vote in 2014 and 2019. Her huge 15-point margin of victory on Sunday suggests that Le Pen’s party is at an all-time high and Macron’s camp is in a position of unprecedented weakness.

This result marks a harsh rebuke of France’s Europhile president, who came to power in 2017 on the promise that French voters would “no longer have reasons to vote for extreme parties.” Macron had upped the ante during the campaign, warning that “Europe is deadly” and pointing to the threat to the continent from a resurgent far-right at D-Day commemorations.

Political consequences

The defeat is also a devastating blow for the young prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who was appointed less than six months ago to revitalize Macron’s second term.

“Don’t be like the British people who cried after Brexit,” Attal told voters days before the election, suggesting they would regret having put their future in the hands of Eurosceptics. However, these warnings no longer seem to affect Le Pen’s party, which abandoned its calls for a “Frexit” long ago.

According to an Ipsos poll on Sunday, 68% of RN supporters said they voted “first and foremost to express their opposition to the president and his government,” compared to 39% nationally. While the general electorate voted based on EU issues, a whopping 73% of RN voters said national concerns took priority.

Immigration and the cost of living crisis, RN’s top vote-winning issues, were the dominant issues on voters’ minds.

The Divided and Defeated Left

For the country’s left, the European elections provided another reminder of the dangers of division. The NUPES alliance came in second place in the parliamentary elections two years ago, raising hopes for an end to factionalism and disputes. However, those hopes were dashed ahead of the EU elections, leaving five separate lists competing for a shrinking share of the electorate.

The main victims of the split were the Greens, who are now projected to win just 5.5% of the vote, up from 13% in 2019. France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left party, did better than five years ago with 8.7% of the vote.

However, his dominance on the left will be challenged by a resurgent Socialist Party, which is predicted to get 14% of the vote.

European lawmaker Raphaël Glucksmann, who led the socialists, emerged as a central figure of the campaign, attracting center-left voters desperate for an alternative to Mélenchon.

Despite this, the possibility of reviving the NUPES alliance in time for the June 30 elections looks bleak.

A Dangerous Gamble

On Sunday, Glucksmann was “astonished” by Macron’s gamble, accusing the president of caving in to the National Grouping’s calls for an early vote. “This is an extremely dangerous game with democracy and institutions,» he said.

The opposition Conservatives also criticized the move, calling it hasty and claiming that it leaves them ill-prepared for the battle after hard-hitting European elections.

“To dissolve without giving anyone time to organize and without any campaign is to play Russian roulette with the fate of the country,” said Valérie Pécresse, a former presidential candidate for Les Républicains.

An Ominous Precedent

The last French president to call an early election was Jacques Chirac in 1997, and his gamble is remembered as one of the biggest mistakes of Moderna French politics. The move only angered voters, who stripped Chirac of his majority and forced him to cohabit with a leftist government.

While today’s voters are equally unhappy, France’s political landscape is radically different. Macron and the far right have supplanted the traditional left-right divide, making the outcome of the upcoming elections highly unpredictable.

This scenario poses a huge challenge for Macron, whose presidency could be deeply affected by the outcome of these early elections, with significant implications for France’s political future and its position in Europe.