Macron's high-stakes election gamble in France

A moment of reckoning in France: President Emmanuel Macron dissolved his country's parliament and called for snap elections after French far-right groups made significant gains in the European Union elections, said the BBC . "I have heard your message," the president told French voters, "and I will not let it go without a response." Macron's "dramatic and surprise decision" to call the election could open the way for Marine Le Pen's anti-migrant National Rally party to take power — and to make Le Pen herself France's new prime minister.

The elections are a "huge gamble," said The New York Times . "It is a huge risk from an impetuous man who prefers taking the initiative to being subjected to events," said one observer. Macron is asking his country's voters what they meant by their pro-right EU votes: "Were the French letting off steam, or did they really mean it?" They might mean it, Politico said. "At no point in history has the National Rally appeared closer to power." With hard-right parties making gains across Europe, "yesterday's truths are no longer guaranteed in today's new political reality."

'We are the stakes'

The effort to make the National Rally more acceptable to French voters is led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella , CNN said. He was hand-picked in 2022 by Le Pen to lead the party and has worked to rid it "of its antisemitic and racist overtones" while retaining its populist rhetoric. "We will act by expelling delinquents, criminals and foreign Islamists who pose a threat to national security," Bardella said. His efforts are proof that "what was once unpalatable and reserved to the fringes of French politics is now normalized and entrenched in the mainstream."

The first round of elections takes place on June 30, giving France "three weeks to avoid the worst," Jérôme Fenoglio said at Le Monde . Journalists keep using gambling terms to describe Macron's gambit, and deservedly so. "The problem is that we are the stakes." Macron has long tried to reduce the allure of the far-right in France — but he did so without implementing actual policies that get at the roots of concerns about migration , the climate transition and other issues that have powered National Rally's rise. Now an inflection point is at hand. "Nothing less than the future of our democracy will be decided."

Alliances, made and unmade

An early sign of trouble for Macron: France's other parties have rejected his bid to form an alliance against National Rally, Financial Times said. He made a "public pitch" to an array of parties —  the Socialists and the Greens, as well as the center-right Republicans — on Sunday. "But his potential allies have so far rejected his offer." Instead, Reuters said, Republicans leader Eric Ciotti has called for an alliance with National Rally. "This is what the vast majority of our voters want," Ciotti said. "They tell us 'reach a deal'." That means a "decades-old consensus" to keep the far right out of power has effectively ended.

So the snap elections could upend everything we've come to know about French politics. A new poll shows National Rally leading with 34%, Bloomberg said — nearly twice the 19% of Macron's ruling Renaissance party. The two rounds of votes take place on June 30 and July 7.