Everyone expected Macron to lose, no one expected a snap election
It is not just the UK that faces a snap election, French President Emmanuel Macron has taken a political gamble of his own after his centrist-alliance was defeated in the European Parliament elections, James Mates reports
The result was expected - President Macron’s response to it most definitely was not.
The far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, led in this election by her 28-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella, had just won a third of the vote, pushing Macron’s party into a humiliating second place with just 15%.
In his victory speech Bardella made a routine demand for Macron to call snap parliamentary elections. To the surprise of everybody, that is exactly what the President did.
So three years before they are due, France will elect a new parliament in early July. But what is Macron thinking? Why, after being given a bloody nose in one vote, would he immediately call another?
Macron’s calculation may be that European elections are different, that people use them as a ‘free vote’ to have a moan about the government, but that when choosing the actual government of the country they will think again.
He may be right. The prospect of a 28-year-old far-right prime minister may lead to some serious buyer's remorse in the French electorate. But equally, he may be wrong.
If France ends up with its first far-right government since Petain during WWII, Macron could be a lame duck for the three long years he will remain in office. But that too may be part of his calculation.
Populists thrive in opposition. Governing is much harder.
Give the National Rally three years of scrutiny, of hard decisions, of uncomfortable confrontations with reality, and you may blunt Marine Le Pen’s march to the presidency in 2027.
It was not just in France that the far right had a good European election. In Germany the ‘Alternative for Germany’ came second, crushing all three parties that make up the current coalition government.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz will stay in office but as a wounded and weakened figure.
In Italy and Austria populist parties came top. The European Parliament will not be able to ignore them. On immigration and green policies in particular, they will make their presence powerfully felt.
But the parliament will still be led by the centre-right European People’s Party, and it seems certain that Ursula von der Leyen will secure a second four-year term as president of the European Commission.
Overall the centre has held, but the far right has taken a significant step forward.
Whether, in the case of France, this can be translated into real power at a national level we shall find out in just a few weeks' time.
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