Macron is not going anywhere – PM
French President Emmanuel Macron will remain in power “whatever the results” of the snap parliamentary elections will be, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has said. Macron dissolved the National Assembly and announced a new vote for France’s lower house of parliament two weeks ago.
The move was taken in response to Macron’s Renaissance Party suffering a crushing defeat in the EU parliamentary elections as the right-wing National Rally (RN) party doubled its vote.
The first round of the polls to choose the new government is set to take place on June 30, with a second vote scheduled for July 7.
“The president will always be president, the only question still open is who will be the prime minister and what majority will govern,” Attal told Le Parisien on Saturday, claiming that there will be “a before and after” the dissolution of the government on June 9.
With the first round of the legislative elections looming in a week, opinion polls indicate that Macron’s camp is lagging far behind both the RN and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance. An Ipsos poll published on Saturday shows that the coalition of right-wing parties led by Marine Le Pen is leading with 35.5%, with the NFP following just behind with 29.5% – compared to 19.5% garnered by Macron’s alliance.
In the event of an RN victory, Macron is expected to offer the job of prime minister to Jordan Bardella, the current party leader.
In his latest attempt to avert an election defeat, Macron issued an open letter to the public, justifying his decision to dissolve the National Assembly as “the only possible choice” and urging the French people to cast their ballots “with conscience and responsibility.”
“Don’t give up, vote,” he said in his appeal on Sunday, ruling out resignation and arguing that the presidential camp is leading France on “the best path.”
“You can trust me to act until May 2027 as your President, protector at every moment of our Republic,” he said, adding that the upcoming vote is “neither a presidential election nor a vote of confidence in the president of the republic” but a response to “a single question: who should govern France?”
Marine Le Pen, the former long-time RN leader who currently heads the party’s faction in parliament and is widely seen as the frontrunner for the next French presidential election, has argued that Macron’s resignation could be the only way to avoid a hung parliament for the remaining three years of his term.
