EU elections: Macron to dissolve French
parliament after crushing loss to far right
As National Rally achieve best ever result in France,
populists also make gains in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands
Jon Henley
in Paris, Jennifer Rankin and Lisa O'Carroll in Brussels
Sun 9 Jun
2024 20.57 BST
France’s
president, Emmanuel Macron, has said he intends to dissolve parliament and call
snap legislative elections in the wake of his allies’ crushing defeat to the
far right National Rally (RN) in Sunday’s European parliament elections.
According
to usually reliable projections, Macron’s centrist list was on course to score
between 14.8% and 15.2% of the vote, less than half of RN’s tally of 31.5%-33%
- the party’s highest ever in a nationwide election - and only just ahead of
the Socialist list on 14%.
“At the end
of this day, therefore, I will not be able to act as if nothing has happened,”
Macron said in a televised address on Sunday. “That is why … I have decided to
give you the choice of our parliamentary future again, by voting.”
The French
president, whose second term had more than two years to run before elections
due in 2027, said he would shortly sign a decree calling the elections, and
that the first round would be held on 30 June and the second on 7 July.
“France
needs a clear majority in serenity and harmony. To be French, at heart, it is
about choosing to write history, not be driven by it,” Macron said.
The head of
the RN’s list, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, had earlier said French voters had
clearly “expressed a desire for change” and called for snap legislative
elections.
Macron was
“a weakened president”, Bardella told the far-right party’s supporters at a
victory party in the Bois de Vincennes, east of Paris, saying the
“unprecedented gap” in the two scores reflected “a stinging disavowal and
rejection of the president and his government”.
Marine Le
Pen, the veteran far-right leader, said: “We are ready to take power if the
French people have confidence in us in these forthcoming legislative elections.
We are ready to put the country back on its feet. We are ready to defend the
interests of the French people. We are ready to put an end to mass
immigration.”
Analysts
had predicted that Macron, whose centrist alliance does not have a majority in
the lower house and has had to push legislation through without a vote using a
controversial constitutional tool, could be in trouble after the European
elections.
Weakened by
such a heavy defeat, the centrist president was likely to face repeated censure
motions probably leading to an eventual government collapse, experts have
warned – a scenario the embattled president is clearly seeking to avoid.
However observers warned that he was taking a gamble.
Raphael
Glucksmann, who ran on in the European elections on a combined ticket for his
European group, Place Publique, and the Socialist party, said Macron had “given
in” to Bardella. “This is a very dangerous game to play with democracy and the
institutions. I am flabbergasted,” he said.
Another
critic, Valérie Pécresse, a senior figure in the conservative Les Républicains,
said: “Dissolving without giving anyone time to organise and without any
campaign is playing Russian roulette with the country’s destiny.”
The RN was
far from the only far-right party to be celebrating gains on Sunday night. Exit
polls indicated that the hard-right populists had also expanded their share of
the vote in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
Although
the centre-right alliance appeared to have taken a decisive lead in Germany,
exit polls indicated the far-right Alternative für Deutschland had made
significant gains, while the governing Greens and Social Democrats had slumped.
The
Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, now in opposition, was on
course for 29.5% of the vote, while the AfD had jumped to 16.5% from 11% in
2019. The AfD’s success comes despite a slew of scandals, including its lead
candidate saying that the SS, the Nazi’s main paramilitary force, were “not all
criminals”.
The parties
of Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition were on course for a disastrous night, as the
Social Democrats slid to 14%, worse than its weakest ever result in 2019,
according to the exit poll. The Greens, who came second in 2019 with 20.5%,
were knocked down to fourth place with 12 %-12.5%.
Tens of
thousands of Germans took to the streets in cities including Berlin, Dresden
and Munich to protest against rightwing extremism on Sunday, the final day of
European elections in 21 countries.
In Austria,
meanwhile, the far-right Freedom party was forecast to have come top, with a
projected 27%, ahead of the conservative People’s party and the Social
Democrats, on 23.5% and 23% respectively.
In the
Netherlands Geert Wilders’ far-right party was running a close second behind a
Left-Green alliance. The Freedom party looked set to win 17.7% of the vote,
while the Left-Green alliance, led by the former EU Commission vice-president,
Frans Timmermans, was on 21.6%.
On Sunday,
the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist
and anti-immigrant government, told reporters after casting his ballot: “Right
is good. To go right is always good. Go right!”
However,
the picture was not all dismal for centrists. According to an initial
projection from the European parliament, MEPs from the four pro-European
mainstream groups were forecast to retain a majority of seats in the assembly,
but a smaller one than in 2019, which will make it increasingly difficult for
them to pass laws.
The
European People’s party, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and
the Greens were on course for 451 of the 720 seats, a 62.6% share, compared
with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament. These
groups often find themselves on opposing sides; the Greens, for example, did
not support Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president in 2019.
However,
the narrowing overall majorities for mainstream pro-European parties could
endanger the passing of ambitious laws on climate action. It is also likely to
complicate Von der Leyen’s hopes of winning a second term as European
Commission president, as she needs to win the support of at least 361 of the
new members of parliament.
In a tweet
after the exit poll, Von der Leyen said she was happy about the “excellent
results” for her CDU/CSU alliance. “We had the right topics. The voters have
confirmed this.”
Bas
Eickhout, a Dutch MEP who is one of the two lead candidates for the Greens,
said he was disappointed with the projected result in Germany “In 2019, we had
10%. We knew we would not reach that. I think if we are around 7% or 8%, that
would still be a pretty good result for us, I would say,” he told reporters.
Voters in
most EU countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, were
called to the polls on Sunday, the culmination of a four-day electoral exercise
that began last Thursday in the Netherlands.
In the
first election since Britain left the EU, an estimated 361 million Europeans
had the chance to vote. That included 16-year olds in Belgium and Germany for
the first time, who joined counterparts in Austria and Malta and 17-year-olds
in Greece.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário