CNN
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French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called general elections after exit polls showed his Renaissance party was set to suffer a landslide defeat to the far-right opposition in Sunday’s European Parliament elections.
Initial projections put the far-right National Rally (RN) in the lead with 31.5% of the vote, more than double that of Renaissance, which came in a distant second with 15.2%, and just ahead of the Socialists in third place with 14.3%.
In a celebratory speech after the exit polls were released, RN leader Jordan Bardella said the rift between the two parties was a “bitter repudiation” for the president and called on Macron to dissolve the French parliament.
“This unprecedented defeat for the current government marks the end of a cycle and the first day of the post-Macron era,” Bardella told a raucous audience at RN headquarters.
Less than an hour later, Macron addressed the nation, announcing that France would dissolve the lower house of parliament and hold parliamentary elections. The first round of voting would take place on June 30, the second on July 7, Macron said.
“I have decided to give you back the right to choose your future as members of the National Assembly, through your vote. I am therefore dissolving the National Assembly this evening,” Macron said in a surprise announcement.
“This decision is an important and weighty one. But above all, it is an act of trust. My dear compatriots, I trust in the ability of the French people to take the most fair decisions,” the French president added.
Stephane Lemouton/SIPA/AP
President Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron at the Touquet polling station for the European Parliament elections on June 9, 2024.
In the French system, parliamentary elections are held to elect the 577 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. Separate elections are also held to choose the country’s president, but these are not scheduled until 2027.
In the last parliamentary elections in 2022, Macron’s Ensemble coalition, which included his Renaissance party, fell short of a majority and was forced to seek support from elsewhere.
After Macron’s announcement, Marine Le Pen, who ran unsuccessfully against him in the 2017 and 2022 French presidential elections but whose RN party has since made a comeback in the polls, said she welcomed Macron’s decision to call elections.
“We are ready to take power if the French people trust us,” said Le Pen, who currently serves as the RN’s parliamentary leader.
“We are ready to rebuild the country, we are ready to defend the interests of the French people, we are ready to put an end to mass immigration, we are ready to prioritise the purchasing power of the French people and we are ready to start the reindustrialisation of the country,” she said.
Since beginning his second term in 2022, President Macron has ruled with a relative majority and has been forced to invoke Article 49(3) of the French Constitution on multiple occasions to pass bills without a vote in parliament, to the frustration of opposition lawmakers and many French people.
The last time a French president dissolved parliament was in 1997, when Jacques Chirac lost his majority and Lionel Jospin’s Socialist party came to power.
An Elysee Palace source close to Macron, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that the projected election results show that France has a “republican majority” made up of people who “don’t subscribe to the ideas of the far right.”
“You must never be afraid of the French people,” the source said. “Persuade, persuade, persuade. That’s the spirit that the presidential majority will adopt.”
