Macron’s snap election gamble against Le Pen and the far right could backfire spectacularly

Emmanuel Macron has taken a massive gamble. He has called a bombshell snap parliamentary election after the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen received more than double the vote that Macron’s centrist list in the European parliamentary elections.

The French president could have tried to ignore these European election results – and written them off as an aberration that has no practical impact on France‘s own politics. With the Olympics later in the summer in Paris, Macron could have focused on that. But the gains Le Pen’s party – which she fronts with 28-year-old Jordan Bardella – have made in the European parliament were clear in the polls for weeks, giving Macron plenty of time to plot his move.

The truth is that he is stuck. His Renaissance party lost its parliamentary majority in 2022 and has been limping through, getting legislation passed using ad hoc deals with the conservative Les Republicains to pass legislation. The country’s budget is to be voted upon in the autumn, which could prove explosive and could see attempts to bring the government down in any case. National Rally is also doing well in French national polling. Macron has clearly decided he is better at trying to grasp the initiative.

The optimistic calculation will be that he and his party can use the European election results to try and rally support against the far right – with voters often returning to more traditional candidates once their vote will have more of a direct impact on their lives – and knock a buoyant National Rally off its stride. That has worked previously, not least in the 2022 presidential election where Macron beat Le Pen by 59 per cent to 41 per cent.

The more pragmatic calculation is that National Rally makes gains in the voting on 30 June and 7 July, but not enough to give it a majority. Then the party faces a similar parliamentary reality to the one Macron is dealing with now. The hope would be that being more involved in the mechanics of parliament will help take the shine off Le Pen before the presidential elections in 2027.

However, even if National Rally does not get a majority, if it becomes the largest party in parliament then Macron might have to deal with a Prime Minister Le Pen, or Bardella. If that happens, then Macron will be hoping that the “cohabitation effect”– being in government for the next two-and-a-half years – will put a brake on National Rally’s popularity. The worst case for Macron is that Le Pen and National Rally manage to keep poll numbers stable, or even increase them, moving into 2027 and that one of the political arguments that can currently be used against them – that they don’t know power – will have been somewhat nullified.

The last time France’s parliament was dissolved was in 1997 – when Jacques Chirac lost his parliamentary majority and helped usher the Socialists into power under Lionel Jospin. The fact that parliamentary and presidential elections were synchronised in 2000 has helped make it unnecessary since, with voters giving each incoming president a majority – at least until Macron lost his own majority two years ago.

Those inside Macron’s camp might believe there is enough of a “republican majority” who would be aghast at a National Rally majority to keep them out, and that will allow Macron to remind voters of his ability to take political risks, which was a key part of his image when he first took the presidency.

But there is a chance that Macron is making a monumental error. He will find out if the gamble was worth the risk over the next month.