Macron urges French voters to make ‘right choice’ in polls gamble

PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron said on June 10 that he was confident the French people would make the “right choice” in snap elections he called, after the far right crushed his centrist alliance at the EU ballot.

His surprise move came after mainstream centrist parties kept an overall majority in the European Parliament in the polls on June 9, but the far right notched up a string of high-profile victories in Italy, Austria and France.

In Germany, where the three ruling coalition parties also performed dismally, centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman on June 10 ruled out snap polls.

Analysts say the French leader has taken the extremely risky gamble of dissolving the national Parliament in a bid to keep 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,” Mr Macron wrote on social media platform X on the morning of June 10.

“My sole ambition is to be useful to our country that I love so much.”

Mr Macron’s

announcement of elections for a new National Assembly on June 30,

with a second round on July 7, has sparked widespread alarm, even from within the ranks of his own party.

Newspaper Le Monde wrote in an editorial: “By playing with fire, the head of state could end up burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire.”

Lower House Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a senior figure in Mr Macron’s party, on the morning of June 10 appeared to express some dissent, indicating that forming a coalition with other parties could have been a better path.

“The President believed that this path did not exist... I take note of the decision,” she told television channel France 2.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, described the prospect of elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as “extremely unsettling”.

But International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach played down any direct impact on the event.

A far-right premier?

In a televised address late on June 9, Mr Macron warned of the danger of “the rise of nationalists and demagogues” for France and its place in Europe.

He noted that, including the RN, far-right parties in France had managed to take almost 40 per cent of the EU Parliament vote.

Mr Macron hopes to win back the majority he lost in France’s Lower House in 2022 legislative elections after winning a second term.

But some fear the anti-immigration RN could instead win, forcing Mr Macron to work in an uncomfortable coalition with a far-right prime minister.

RN vice-president Sebastien Chenu on June 10 said the party’s 28-year-old president Jordan Bardella would be its contender for the post.

Mr Bardella’s mentor Marine Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections, has remained party leader in Parliament and is largely expected to have a tilt at the top job again in 2027.

The far right came out on top in France, Italy and Austria, and second in Germany and the Netherlands.

The Kremlin, which hopes the far right would take a softer line on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, said it was “attentively observing” the gains.

“While pro-Europeans so far retain their leadership positions, in time... the right-wing parties will be treading on their heels,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

‘Never forget’

The RN came in first, with more than 31 per cent of the votes in France – its score was more than double that of Mr Macron’s, at 14 per cent.

The Socialists and hard-left France Unbowed trailed behind with 13 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on June 10, as he visited the site of a massacre by Nazi soldiers during World War II in France, advised voters to learn from the past.

“Let us never forget the damage done in Europe by nationalism and hate,” he said in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who hails from Mr Macron’s party, earlier warned that the polls would have “consequences of unprecedented seriousness for our nation”.

Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne’s team told RTL radio station that Mr Sejourne, who is also secretary-general of Mr Macron’s Renaissance party, would be “fully engaged” in the battle for Parliament seats as well as his job as minister.

Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure called for the setting up of “a popular front against the far right”.

On the far right, Ms Marion Marechal from the Reconquest party was set to meet Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella for talks in the afternoon, the RN said.

Analyst Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, said Mr Macron had taken an “enormous gamble”.

The most likely outcome, he said, was of another hung Parliament that would lead Mr Macron to form a wider alliance with the centre right or centre left. AFP