European elections: success for the far right and a dramatic turn of events in France

As expected, the results of the European elections on 9 June were marked by the worrying breakthrough of the far right, which increased its scores throughout the Union and came out on top in Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, and Italy. While the far right has a total of 131 seats, the conservatives of the European People’s Party remain in first place in the Parliament with 189 seats, followed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (135 seats) and the centrists of the Renew group (79 seats).

But it was in France that the blow hit the hardest. Faced with 31.4% for the Rassemblement National, compared with 14.6% for his ‘Renaissance’ party, French President Emmanuel Macron made a snap decision, as soon as the results were announced, to dissolve the National Assembly and call general elections in less than a month’s time. This highly risky and widely misunderstood gamble is plunging the country into great uncertainty, and the new lightning campaign that is about to begin is giving all the French political forces cold sweats…

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