Analysis. The French president, who has cast himself as pro-European, is playing a national game, hoping to call the bluff of the far right. However, it’s an extremely dangerous game.

written by Anna Maria Merlo

Topic European Union

PARIS

June 11, 2024

In a bombshell announcement, Emmanuel Macron called snap legislative elections, with the first round on June 30, the second on July 7. For the first time, a European election has had a disruptive effect at the national level, although there is no provision for such an outcome at the institutional level.

National Rally came out on top, with 31.5 percent of the vote, while the far-right Reconquête managed to clear the 5 percent threshold. Macron’s party, Renaissance, came in second but with less than half the number of votes for the far right, at below 15 percent. Just behind it was Raphaël Glucksmann’s PS with 14 percent. France Insoumise may end up above 10%. The Républicains were at slightly above 7 percent. The Ecologists narrowly managed to avoid falling under the 5% threshold. The PCF was out, however, getting even less than the 3% needed to get their expenses reimbursed.

Macron spoke about a “main lesson” from the vote: it was “not a good result for the parties who defend Europe.” He said that the far right was now at 40 percent in France, railing against the extreme right as “both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall........

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