French President Emmanuel Macron has defended his shock decision to dissolve parliament and call elections, calling on French voters to unite and “say no to extremes”.
Three days after his shocking announcement in response to the far-right National Party’s dramatic victory in the European elections, Mr Macron denied he wanted to hand them the keys to power.
He said calling an election was the Republicans’ only option. He said many political groups “cannot sympathize with this extremist fever” and should unite against it.
His decision to convene two rounds of elections on June 30 and July 7 prompted four left-wing parties to agree to a pact to work together, but the conservative Republican Party remains deeply divided.
Hard-line Republican leader Eric Ciotti is facing calls to resign after he called for a coalition with National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
Although an estimated half of grassroots Republicans support such a coalition, the vast majority of party leaders have flatly rejected it.
Mr. Ciotti said the party headquarters in Paris was being closed for security reasons, hours before an emergency meeting to decide whether his ouster would take place there. He denied any such meeting was planned.
President Macron has been widely criticized for his seemingly spontaneous decision to call an election, an hour after his party polled below 15% while the National Rally reached nearly 31.5% in the election in Europe.
Two years into his second presidential term, his party does not have a majority in Congress, so any legislation requires support from political allies. He said the system was clogged, making it impossible for the government to act.
Mr. Macron said that as president he would not be involved in the election campaign and would leave it to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, although his speech on Wednesday sounded a lot like a campaign launch his party’s election campaign.
When asked by a reporter if he would hand over the keys to France to the far right, Mr. Macron said doing nothing was not an option and asking the people to decide was a democratic principle. “Message received,” he said.
Mr. Macron turned his attack to both left and right, arguing that both their masks had slipped and the battle for values had broken out in broad daylight.
He accused Mr. Ciotti of turning his back on his party, which has a tradition that goes back to Presidents Charles de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
He then said that the centre-left was in bed with the far left which was already guilty of anti-Semitism and anti-parliamentary attitudes.
Raphaël Glucksmann led the center-left to third place on Sunday with a campaign to appeal to voters alienated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s more radical, unyielding France. However, within 24 hours of the results, the centre-left agreed a pact with France Unbowed.
Mr. Mélenchon accused the president of implementing a chaotic strategy and indulging in a wave of insults “to those who do not share his views.”
