The victory of the National Rally (RN), a nationalist party led by Marine Le Pen, was expected, as it represented the scenario projected for months by all the polls, however, its consequences transcend the forecasts of many, with a financial impact as well. when the Paris Stock Exchange plummeted 2.37 percent this Monday at its opening.
After the results of the election were announced at night, the head of the RN list, Jordan Bardella, demanded that President Emmanuel Macron dissolve the Assembly, alleging a clear message from the French calling for a change of course, he claimed. that the president assumed.
“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron said in a message to the nation, an hour after the triumph of the far-right organization with around 32 percent of the votes, more than double those obtained. by the ruling Renaissance and its allies.
According to the head of state, he decided to put the parliamentary future in the hands of the French through a new legislative election, with the first round on June 30 and the second on July 7.
His position was logically welcomed by Le Pen, who declared that RN is ready to exercise power, and by figures from the left such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon and from the conservative camp such as Éric Ciotti, while a survey attributed support to leaving the dissolution by more than half of the electorate.
However, criticism poured in against the president for giving in to the extreme right, as well as accusations that it was his policies that caused the political earthquake and the comfortable victory of a party branded as anti-European and denounced for attacking immigration.
For Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the Socialist Party/Public Square list – third in the European elections – the president accepts an “extremely dangerous game” and evades his historical responsibilities.
Accepting the dissolution demanded by Bardella will remain as one more stain on Macron’s five-year term in office, he estimated.
The environmentalist candidate Marie Toussaint also criticized the decision, calling it a “double betrayal”, brandishing a commitment to always fight to stop the extreme right.
Even within the ruling party, the return to the polls in the legislative elections seems to be worrying, considering criteria such as that indicated in France2 by the president of the dissolved National Assembly, the ruling party deputy Yaël Braun-Pivet, who stated that a different path could have been taken, in particularly the search for a coalition or a government pact.
Another consequence of the European elections is the demand to form blocs, defended in particular by leaders of the left, whose contradictions and differences led to the disappearance of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), which had achieved a good result in the elections. legislative elections of 2022.
The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, called to form a popular front against the extreme right in view of the June 30 elections, to which 49 million 500 thousand French people will be called again.
Also the national secretary of the communists, Fabien Roussel, advocated for the left coalition.
We must meet quickly and work together on a pact for France, the deputy warned.
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