President Emmanuel Macron once emerged as a bold young leader offering to revive France through radical pro-business, pro-European policies, leading voters to say there was no longer any reason to vote for extreme policies.
Seven years after he was first elected, Call for early elections Macron is weakened at home and abroad, while the far-right appears to be creeping closer to power. Macron, who is in office until 2027, has said he will not step down before his term is up.
But the prospect of defeat in the parliamentary elections means he may have to share power with a prime minister from a rival party, possibly Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right Rally National. Macron announced the surprise vote earlier this month after his centre-right coalition suffered a major defeat in the European Parliament elections.
He argued that despite his coalition having the most seats, it does not have a majority in parliament beyond 2022. This has forced him to maneuver politically to get the bill passed. Voters will choose who to send to the National Assembly in two rounds of voting, on Sunday and July 7, to form a new government.
Macron defeated National Rally leader Marine Le Pen twice, in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.
Fresh from his first victory at age 39, he strode slowly onto a stage in the courtyard of Paris’ Louvre museum as the European anthem “Ode to Joy” played, where he declared of Le Pen’s supporters: “I will do everything so that they have no reason to vote for extremists.”
The new centrist force, which Macron touted at the time as “neither right nor left”, beat out traditional rivals the Socialist Party and the conservative Republicans.
In 2022, Macron again beat Le Pen, but by a smaller margin. Macron acknowledged that the French people “voted not to support my ideas, but to block the ideas of the far right.” Now, the existence of his centrist alliance is in danger. Opinion polls show that the front-runners in the parliamentary elections are mainly candidates from the New Popular Front, a coalition of the far right and a broad left.
Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe recently said that Macron had “killed the presidential majority.”
Following a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels early on Friday morning, President Macron justified his decision to dissolve the National Assembly.
“It was essential to hold (voters) to account, and I don’t think you can pursue ambitious policies without public engagement,” he said.
Asked about National Rally lawmakers who say someone like the former minister, who has dual French-Moroccan nationality, should not be part of the government, Macron said “it tells you what’s at stake.” He recalled France’s ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity.”
“Overt racism and anti-Semitism represent a deep betrayal of France, its values and our republic. We must fight it with force, we must be indignant,” Macron said. “Because this is not a question of politics, not just of voting, it is a question of the very possibility of living together.” “Whatever happens, I will never give up fighting the far right,” Macron said.
“It would be very strange not to discuss this with my friend President Emmanuel Macron. That’s how we operate,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Brussels when asked if he had discussed the French election with Macron. Scholz, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, added: “Of course I hope that parties closer to me politically, for example, will do better than others. … We shouldn’t predict the outcome.”
At a press conference earlier this month, Macron argued that his economic achievements speak for themselves: Unemployment has fallen from more than 10 percent to 7.5 percent and France has been ranked as the most attractive European country for foreign investment in recent years.
But his time in office has been marked by turmoil, from the Yellow Vest protests against social and economic injustice, to the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the unrest sparked by the police shooting of a teenager last year.
Whatever the outcome, Macron’s decision to call early elections has already weakened France on the European stage, said Lisa Thomas-d’Arbois, vice director of French studies at the Institut Montaigne, a Paris think tank. “It has created a certain sense of fear in Europe and among international partners,” she said. “You only need to look at interest rates on the financial markets to see that France’s credibility has eroded somewhat.”
“Is it because we could face a political deadlock over the next year or is it because the Rally National could take power? It’s difficult to say at this stage,” she said. “What is certain is that the Rally National’s position is not reassuring in terms of France’s image over the next few years.”
