When provisional results started to drop in on Sunday (9 June) night, it soon became clear that the polls had been accurate. The European election was a great defeat for French president Emmanuel Macron and his party coalition’s candidate, Valérie Hayer.
But above all, it was a huge victory for the French far right.
“The rise of nationalists, of demagogues is a danger for our nation, but also for Europe, for Frances’s place in Europe and the world,” the French president said in a televised speech.
The dissolution of the country’s National Assembly and snap legislative elections would “give the French a chance to determine the country’s future,” he said.
He was right. French nationalists are certainly on the rise.
The far-right National Rally party’s Jordan Bardella, backed by former party leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, obtained 31.5 percent of the French vote, while the even more radical far-right party Reconquête, whose lead EU candidate is Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal, obtained 5.5 percent of the votes and five seats in the next European Parliament.
What is more, calls for wider right-wing collaboration were immediately heard in the sight of the snap elections to the lower house, due on 30 June and 7 July.
