STORY: :: French President Macron's snap election call creates
the potential for extreme right to rise, says an analyst
:: June 10, 2024
:: Anne Muxel, Executive director, Sciences Po's Centre of Political Sciences
"It's probably the first time in the French history of elections that a president pronounce dissolution of the National Assembly after the results of European elections." //
"It opens really a very uncertain period during the three weeks we will have to make another choice (election campaign)." //
"It's a play at risks because it opens the possibility that the extreme right arises for the first time at the government and it opens the eventuality to have a cohabitation in France between him, the president of Republic, and the (far-right) government."
Macron's decision amounts to a roll of the dice on his political future and that of France. It immediately sent the euro down, also hitting French stocks and government bonds.
The June 30 and July 7 ballot could, for the first time, hand a great deal of power to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally, if they can transform their rising popularity into a win at home too - where the vote would also be about trust that it could run a major European government.
If the eurosceptic, anti-immigration RN did score a majority, Macron would remain president for three more years and continue to be in charge of defense and foreign policy.
The early election will also come shortly before the July 26 start of the Paris Olympics, when all eyes will be on France.
