French President Emmanuel Macron has dissolved the French National Assembly and called for a snap election as the right-wing National Rally party heads to a sweeping victory in European Union parliamentary elections.
French President Emmanuel Macron appears on a television screen at the National Rally party election night headquarters in Paris on June 9, 2024. Lewis Joly/AP Photo
In a video addressing the French people, Macron announced, “I have decided to give you back the choice of our parliamentary future through the vote.
“I am thus dissolving the National Assembly this evening.”
The French president set the first round of elections for June 30, and the second round for July 7.
The decision comes as the National Rally Party—the party of Mr. Macron’s two-time presidential rival, Marine Le Pen—looks to be on track for a stunning rout of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance Party in the European Parliament.
Le Pen’s party is estimated to be ahead with around 31.5 percent of the vote to the Renaissance Party’s 14.5 percent. The socialist “Wake Up Europe” Party, meanwhile has just around 14 percent.
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The snap election move represents a gamble for Macron, who’s currently serving his second term in office as president.
Should the National Rally Party gain enough seats in the new election, it will effectively derail Macron’s legislative agenda for his remaining two years in office.
He is unable to seek reelection in 2027 due to term limits.
Macron called the decision to dissolve the national parliament “serious and weighty.”
“But it is before all an act of confidence,” he said. “Confidence in you, my dear compatriots, in the capacity of the French people to make the most just choice for themselves and for future generations.”
Le Pen, seen as the frontrunner in the 2027 elections, appeared overjoyed at the results, calling the election “historic.”
Le Pen has long represented a populist voice of growing French angst with the immigration policies of the last two decades.
Despite having been defeated by Macron in both the 2017 and 2022 French presidential elections, Le Pen’s party has made steady gains, and could now be on track to snatch legislative power from the French president.
“We are ready to take over power if the French give us their trust in the upcoming national elections,” Le Pen said during a rally after the results came in.
Before the National Assembly was dissolved, Macron’s party held 169 seats to Le Pen’s 88. The lower chamber has 577 seats in total.
Should Macron’s gamble fail, he'll be left with control of defense and foreign policy, but will be highly limited in domestic power.
—Joseph Lord
WHAT DO POST-CONVICTION POLLS SHOW?
Following former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in New York, Democrats were quick to start applying the label “convicted felon” to their leading 2024 rival.
But for voters, polls show, that label may not have as much weight as Trump’s critics might hope: A spate of recent polls has shown little shift in voters’ attitudes post-conviction.
“I’m hard-pressed to find any evidence in the polls that the conviction has made much of a difference at all in the public, in the presidential ballot test,” pollster Neil Newhouse told The Epoch Times.
Overall, most voters appear to have the same opinion about both major candidates that they had when the trial began on April 15.
That bodes worse for President Joe Biden than for Trump, analysts say.
In Biden’s best case, it could mean low voter interest, which would necessitate a shift in strategy; in Biden’s worst case, it could indicate that voters largely share Trump’s view that the prosecution was politically-motivated.
When Trump’s New York trial began on April 15, he held a lead of 0.8 percentage points over President Biden in an average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight. RealClearPolitics polling averages showed a 0.3-point Trump lead.
In a June 6 average of polls, exactly one week after the trial verdict, FiveThirtyEight polling averages showed a 1.2-point lead for the former president, while RealClearPolitics showed a 0.5-point lead.
A more granular post-verdict poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College included responses from 2,000 voters who had previously been polled, to learn how their opinions had changed.
This poll concluded that Trump’s national popularity had fallen by about 2 percentage points but that he still maintained a 1-point lead over Biden. Overall, 93 percent of those who supported Trump before his trial continued to do so after.
Of those who changed their minds, about 43 percent said they now support Biden and about 57 percent are now undecided.
Patricia Crouse, a political science professor at The University of New Haven in Connecticut, said the debates are more likely to affect undecided voters than are any of the former president’s criminal trials.
“[Those matters] aren’t as important to voters as issues like abortion and the economy and immigration,” Crouse told The Epoch Times.
Even for those who were swayed, the effect could be short-lived.
“We’re still five months out from the election. This is going to be completely overshadowed in two weeks by the presidential debate,” Newhouse said.
Biden and Trump will square off in their first presidential debate on June 27. A second debate is set for Sept. 10.
—Lawrence Wilson and Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the criminal case against Trump in New York, says he’s “available” to testify to Congress under certain conditions, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported. Bragg asked House Republicans—who are investigating the prosecution into the former president—to allow him to testify after Trump’s sentencing on July 11.
Along with their crushing victories in France, right-wing and populist parties made huge gains in contests in Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland. An article by Politico explores these right-wing victories and what they might mean for a much more right-wing European Parliament moving forward.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, has quit the Israeli war cabinet in protest of Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Gantz plans to push for early elections ahead of the end of the war—a move, the Wall Street Journal reports, that could complicate ongoing U.S.-Israeli negotiations with Hamas to achieve a ceasefire and return hostages.
Trump is expected to sit in for a pre-sentencing probation interview on Monday, NBC reports. The interview will be conducted virtually and is required for Trump’s pre-sentencing report. His sentencing is set for July 11.
As poll after poll shows his support among Hispanics dropping, Biden is prepping another unilateral executive action on immigration CNN reports that the final details haven’t been decided, but that the move will involve providing legal protections for illegal aliens married to U.S. citizens in an effort to shore up his support among Hispanics.
