Influencer Editorial Team
France’s Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, looked tense with his arms folded, while another minister covered his face with his hands as President Emmanuel Macron gathered top government figures at the Élysée last Sunday to make the shock announcement: he would dissolve parliament and call a snap legislative election. This decision came in the wake of Marine Le Pen’s party securing a significant win at the polls. The mood, said Attal, was “grave”.
One senior centrist figure admitted to not having slept properly since the announcement of a campaign that will be the shortest in modern French history at barely three weeks. Some party supporters felt their world had been turned upside down. “We’re going to get out there and do our best,” said a government minister.
Macron’s opponents on the left have called the move folly, arguing that it is reckless to call a sudden parliamentary election when support for the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) is at its peak. Several politicians accused Macron of playing Russian roulette.
The Rise of the National Rally
Le Pen’s National Rally, founded as the Front National by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was long viewed as a threat to democracy due to its racist, antisemitic, and anti-Muslim views. However, the recent European elections saw the party garner a record 31.4% of the French votes—double that of Macron’s centrists, who are currently at their lowest ebb. Le Pen’s support is now widespread, with her party topping the vote in over 90% of France’s communes.
Predicting the next result is complex, but pollsters agree on the broad trend: the far right could make historic gains, potentially increasing their seats from 88 to over 200, which might allow them to enter government. A united front of left-wing parties could come second, while Macron’s centrist group, founded in 2016 to radically reinvent French politics, might lose a significant number of seats and come a distant third. The outcome could leave no absolute parliamentary majority.
Macron’s Rationale and Public Sentiment
Amid bafflement over why an election was called, Macron described himself as an “unshakeable optimist” determined to win. He trusts French voters to distinguish between expressing anger in the European elections and risking an extremist government that could disrupt societal cohesion and the economy. Macron believes many French people do not “recognize themselves in this extremist fever” and will vote to save the center ground.
A member of Macron’s team acknowledged the snap election was “brutal” for centrist MPs, many of whom are already campaigning to save their seats. However, it was deemed “necessary” and “rational”. Following a European election defeat and two years without an absolute majority in parliament, Macron felt he had to heed the public’s voice.
Macron has proposed forming a new broad centrist coalition government, inviting politicians from the traditional right and social democrat left. However, such a coalition has proved unattainable since his re-election in 2022, when his centrists lost their absolute majority.
Public Reaction and Macron’s Strategy
Despite Macron’s optimism, his confidence ratings have dropped, and center-left voters abandoned him in the European elections, accusing him of veering right with an immigration law and pushing through a pension age increase. Polling by CSA showed that 57% of people want Macron to resign if his centrists are defeated in the vote, but Macron insists he will not resign. Even if the RN achieves an absolute majority and forms a government, Macron could remain president for three more years, retaining control over defense and foreign policy but losing domestic agenda control.
Macron’s campaign ideas this week ranged from calling a national consultation on secularism to banning mobile phones for children under 11. He warned that France faced a choice between his centrists “or the extremes”, labeling Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing France Unbowed party as extreme and cautioning other left parties against an alliance with them. Such an alliance, however, could outscore Macron’s centrists in the snap election.
“It’s going to be very difficult for the centrists,” said Stewart Chau, the director of polling at Vérian Group. He described public opinion viewing Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament and call an election as less an act of courage and more as “an arsonist playing with fire”.
