The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called this Sunday, June 9, for early legislative elections in France, after the far-right National Rally party (RN) achieved almost a third of the votes in the European Parliament elections in its country.
“In a few moments I will sign the decree calling for the legislative elections whose first round will take place on June 30 and the runoff on July 7,” Macron said in a televised message just an hour after the closing of the polling stations.
“This afternoon a wind of hope blew in France and it has only just begun,” Bardella, who had demanded from the president the dissolution of the National Assembly (French lower house) and early elections, celebrated before his supporters.
“Emmanuel Macron is tonight a weakened president” by this “resounding defeat” and “he cannot remain deaf to the message” sent with these results, added the far-right candidate. “This unprecedented defeat marks the end of a cycle,” he said.
The result of the European elections “It is not a good result for the parties that defend Europe,” “The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger to our nation,” warned Macron, who decided to return the word to the “sovereign people.”
RN’s result, one of the best in its history, confirms the efforts of its leader, Marine Le Pen, to give a more moderate image to the training he inherited in 2018 from his father Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his racist and anti-Semitic comments.
And it could boost his chances in the 2027 presidential election. In 2022, Macron beat Marine Le Pen in the runoff of this election with 58.54% of votes, almost eight points less than in 2017, when he beat his rival with 66.1% of votes.
But months after his re-election in 2022, the French president, who will no longer be able to run in 2027, lost his absolute majority in the legislative elections and RN became the first opposition party in the lower house.
“Macronism is over”
In a context of the rise of the extreme right in the European Union, the heir party of the National Front (FN) once again chose as At the head of the list is Bardella, whose careful image and biography seem to break with the history of his formation.
Bardella was born into a family of Italian origin and He grew up in the care of his mother in a social housing tower in the suburbs of Paris.. In 2021, she became president of RN, although the de facto leader is Marine Le Pen.
Beyond the lists headed by Bardella, Hayer and Glucksmann, the rest of the parties that would achieve representation in the European Parliament for the second largest economy in the EU are La Francia Insumisa (radical left, from 8.3% to 8.7%) and Los Republicanos (LR, right, 7% to 7.2%), according to estimates.
Reconquest! (far-right) and the environmentalists of EELV are around 5%, the limit to be able to obtain electoral representation. The sum of RN and Reconquista! It means that the extreme right is approaching 40% of the vote in France.
“We can see that Macronism is finished,” celebrated the leader of LR, Éric Ciotti, whose traditional right-wing party nevertheless supported Macron’s main laws such as immigration reform or raising the retirement age.
