Protesters held slogans reading “Which pill do you choose, Popular Front or F-Hate” during an anti-far-right rally in Lyon on 16 June 2024, after the French president called legislative elections following far-right parties’ significant gains in European Parliament elections. (Olivier Chassignole/AFP)
- President
Emmanuel Macron has initiated early elections in France, seeking to counter the
far-right’s momentum after the National Rally (RN) achieved significant success
in the EU Parliament elections. - This decision
has left many puzzled, considering the risk of the RN potentially leading the
government. - The election
campaign has drawn significant attention, with figures such as Kylian Mbappe
urging the youth to vote.
France on
Monday began less than a fortnight of frenetic election campaigning for snap
polls called by President Emmanuel Macron to combat the far right, with star
footballer Kylian Mbappe warning the country was at a historic crossroads.
Candidates
had until Sunday evening to register for the 577 seats in the lower house of
the National Assembly ahead of the official start of campaigning at midnight
for the June 30 first round. The decisive second round takes place on 7 July.
The
alliance led by centrist Macron, who called the snap polls some three years
early after the far right trounced his party in EU Parliament elections, is
still way behind and has little chance of winning an outright majority.
Many in
France, including ex-leaders, remain baffled over why Macron took the risk of
calling an election that could see the far-right National Rally (RN) leading
the government and its leader Jordan Bardella, 28, as prime minister.
This combination of photographs created on 16 June 2024 shows French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen (L) in Paris on 20 October 2021, French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) President Jordan Bardella (2L) in Paris on 5 May 2021, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (2R) in Paris on 23 September 2020, and France’s President and French centrist political party Renaissance founder and Honorary President Emmanuel Macron (R) in Paris on 7 March 2017. (Joel Saget and Eric Feferberg / AFP)
One of the
most high-profile of the last candidates to register was Marie-Caroline Le Pen,
the elder sister of the RN’s three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen,
who will stand for the party in the central Sarthe region.
Her
daughter, Nolwenn Olivier, is Bardella’s ex-partner.
‘Young and
inexperienced’
Mbappe,
representing France at the Euro 2024 tournament in Germany, said he was
“against extremes and divisive ideas” and urged young people to vote
at a “crucial moment” in French history.
The striker
defended comments made on Saturday by his teammate Marcus Thuram, saying he
“had not gone too far” in calling on the country “to fight every
day to stop” the RN from winning the elections.
Mbappe said:
Today, we can all see that extremists are very close to winning power, and we have the opportunity to choose the future of our country.
France’s
men’s football team has long been seen as a beacon of diversity in the country.
The French Football Federation has urged against “any form of pressure and
political use of the French team”.
French President Emmanuel Macron (C) stands next to French head coach Didier Deschamps (L) and French forward Kylian Mbappe (R) as they pose for a group photo with the French national football team as part of the team’s preparation for the UEFA Euro 2024 European football championships in Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines on 3 June 2024. (Sarah Meyssonnier/POOL/AFP)
Macron’s
dissolving of parliament after the French far right’s victory in the EU vote
has swiftly redrawn the lines of French politics.
A new
left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, which includes Socialists and
hard-leftists, faced its first crisis over the weekend after some prominent MPs
from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party found they had not been put
forward to stand again.
But Adrien
Quatennens, a close ally of LFI figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon, withdrew his
candidacy, which had sparked anger due to a conviction for domestic violence.
On the
right, the decision of Eric Ciotti, the leader of the Republicans (LR), to seek
an election pact with the RN provoked fury inside the party and a move by its
leadership to dismiss him, which a Paris court blocked on Friday.
Adding to
the chaos, the LR’s executive is now fielding a candidate to stand against
Ciotti in his home region of Nice.
Former
right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper
that Ciotti should have consulted the party leadership over the coalition and
put it to a members’ vote.
He
expressed concern that the LR risked just being absorbed into the RN and also
questioned the wisdom of backing Bardella as premier.
Sarkozy
said Bardella has “never been in charge of anything,” asking,
“Can you lead France when you are so young and inexperienced?”
‘Surprise not
enough’
Macron is due
to return to the domestic campaign fray this week from engagements abroad at
the G7 summit in Italy and the Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland.
Comrades
within his Renaissance ruling party have advised the president to let the
considerably more popular Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, 35, take the lead in
the campaign.
But the
personal stakes are huge for Macron, who risks becoming a lame duck president
until his term expires in 2027, even though he has ruled out stepping down regardless
of the polls’ results.
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Former
Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who famously bowed out of politics in
2002 after the far-right’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, kept him out of
the presidential elections run-off, warned of the perils for Macron.
Jospin, who
only speaks in public very rarely, said that Macron had forced France into a
“hurried” campaign and was “giving the RN a chance to come to
power in France”.
“It’s
not responsible,” he told Le Monde, accusing Macron of
“arrogance” and witheringly adding that “surprise is not enough
to be master of the game”.
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