By Michel Rose and Tassilo Hummel
PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron caused a political earthquake on Sunday when he called a shock parliamentary election for later this month after being defeated in the European Union by Marine Le Pen’s far-right party.
Macron’s surprising decision represents a major gamble on his political future, three years before his presidency ends. If Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party wins a parliamentary majority, Macron would no longer have a say in domestic affairs.
Macron said the EU’s results were bleak for his government and he could not pretend to ignore them. In an address to the nation less than two months before Paris hosts the Olympics, he said lower house elections would take place on June 30, with a second round of voting on July 7.
“This is an essential moment for clarification,” Macron said. “I have heard your message, your concerns and I will not leave them unanswered… France needs a clear majority to act in serenity and harmony.”
Led by the telegenic 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, the RN won around 32% of the vote in Sunday’s vote, more than double the Macron ticket’s 15%, according to initial exit polls. The Socialists came within a radius of Macron with 14%.
Le Pen, the front-runner for the 2027 elections in which Macron cannot run, welcomed the president’s decision.
“We are ready to take power if the French give us their trust in the upcoming national elections,” she told a meeting.
Macron’s advisers said the president made his decision after the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy this week, when he met people who said they were tired of the endless political infighting in parliament.
Le Pen and Bardella tried to frame the EU elections as a midterm referendum on Macron’s mandate, tapping into discontent over immigration, crime and a two-year inflation crisis.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Michel Rose, editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten, William Maclean)
