Macron’s Renew party suffered a stinging defeat in the European elections, securing just 15.2% of the votes to the far-right National Rally’s 31.5%, according to provisional results.

By Alice Tidey

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday evening that he would dissolve the national assembly after the far-right National Rally crushed his centrist Renew party in European elections.

In a five-minute video address released on social media shortly after 21:00 CET, Macron said that “after having carried out the consultations provided for in Article 12 of our Constitution, I have decided to give you back the choice of our parliamentary future by voting.”

“I am therefore dissolving the National Assembly this evening,” he added.

His address came just one hour after his centrist Renew party was handed a heavy blow by coming in a very distant second in the European elections to the RN, where both parties scored 15.2% and 31.5% respectively.

‘Unprecedented defeat’

Jordan Bardella, the RN’s lead candidate for these elections, had in his victory speech delivered shortly after the provisional results came out at 20:00 CET, called for such a move.

“The President of the Republic cannot remain deaf to the message sent this evening by the French people. First of all, he must abandon the agenda he was preparing to implement: de-indexation of retirement pensions, the new rise in energy prices from this summer,” Bardella told supporters.

“We solemnly ask him to take note of this new political situation, come back to the French people and organise new legislative elections.”

“This unprecedented defeat for the current government marks the end of a cycle and day one of the post-Macron era, which it is up to us to build,” he added.

Extreme right is ‘downfall of our country’

Macron retorted in his address that “the rise of the nationalists and demagogues is a threat not only to our nation but also to our Europe and to France’s place in Europe and in the world”.

“The extreme right is both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country. So at the end of this day, I can’t pretend that nothing has happened,” he added.

He said the national ballot, which is to be held on June 30 for the first round and on July 7 for the second, is a “serious and weighty decision” and an “act of trust”.

“Confidence in you, my dear compatriots, in the ability of the French people to make the right choice for themselves and for future generations. Confidence in our democracy, in giving a voice to our sovereign people, nothing is more republican,” he also said.

Legislative elections are usually held in France every five years, weeks after a new president has been elected. The next ones should therefore have been held in mid-2027.

The snap elections are a massive gamble for Macron, who lost his absolute majority in the national assembly after being re-elected in 2022.

His Renew party then secured just 169 seats in the 577 hemicyle, with allies from other centrist parties including MoDem and Horizons supplying another 81 seats [ . . . ]

Continue at source: Why has French President Emmanuel Macron announced snap elections after EU Parliament poll defeat? | Euronews