Le Pen’s populist-nationalist got twice as many votes as the governing group of Emmanuel Macron’s globalist centrists in Sunday’s European Parliament election, prompting Macron to immediately dissolve the national parliament and call fresh French elections in a bid to regain authority for the remainder of his presidential term.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN, Rassemblement National) party looks set to become the largest single party in the European Union after a spectacular result in Sunday’s elections for the European Parliament. Votes that began on Thursday across the European Union to choose the next Parliament finished Sunday evening, and exit polls suggest a strong showing for right wing parties, although perhaps short of the landslide across the continent some polling had suggested.
But there were strong national differences, and France was perhaps the most remarkable result of all. The European grouping for President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party barely scraped second place in the Ipsos exit poll — by a fraction of a per cent — and was left in the dust of the first place RN. Le Pen’s RN, led by party colleague and Member of the European Parliament Jordan Bardella got over twice as many votes at 31.5 per cent of all cast compared to 14.7 per cent for Renaissance.
File photo, November 2022: Rassemblement National (RN) president Jordan Bardella (L) and parliamentary group leader Marine Le Pen wave to audience at the end of the Rassemblement National’s 18th congress on November 5, 2022 in Paris, France. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
RN is predicted in the exit poll to pick up 30 seats in the European Parliament compared to Macron’s 14. This is a significant number, and assuming exit polls are broadly correct across Europe it would make Le Pen’s RN the largest single party in the European Parliament.
This hammer-blow to President Macron’s authority triggered an instant response on Sunday night, as he announced he was dissolving the national Parliament for a snap election later this month. Win that vote and Macron would claim a strong national mandate to continue to govern as President for the rest of his term. Lose that, however, and at best he would have to sit until April 2027 as a lame duck.
It’s a massive gamble, but Macron will have to hope the French people will treat elections for their important national parliament differently to their vote for the remote and less consequential European Parliament in Brussels. This effect was well demonstrated in the years when Britain was still a member of the European Union, and the Eurosceptic UKIP and then Brexit parties of Nigel Farage were major vote-winners for Brussels, but struggled to get a toe-hold for Westminster.
But Le Pen’s RN has momentum on its side, and with just 21 days to go until the first round of that snap election called tonight, Macron may have a hard time turning the narrative around. But he’s had a good try already, reports French broadsheet Le Figaro. Delivering the news in a speech on Sunday night, the President said: “I have decided to give you the choice of our parliamentary future again by voting… [this is a] serious, heavy decision, but above all it is an act of trust”, and saying he wants to “let the sovereign people speak”.
Le président de la République vient d’annoncer la dissolution de l’Assemblée nationale dans quelques semaines. Nous y sommes prêts.
J’appelle les Français à venir nous rejoindre pour former autour du RN une majorité au service de la seule cause qui guide nos pas : la France. pic.twitter.com/o08IMlowk8
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) June 9, 2024
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