France is going to hold early parliamentary elections after the governing party suffered a crushing defeat in the EU election.
Marine Le Pen's National Rally can become the largest party in the entire EU parliament, according to a voting station survey.
President Emmanuel Macron has quickly taken to the airwaves in a TV address to the French people.
As a result, the French parliamentary election is already expected on 30 June. This is a significant gamble from the president's side, considering he already has a difficult parliament to handle. Now he is putting himself at risk of living out the rest of his presidency with a national assembly that has entirely different political ideas.
The decision comes after voting station surveys in French TV have pointed to a significant victory in the EU election for the National Rally (RN) party, which can become twice as large as Macron's liberal LREM.
According to TF1's voting station survey, the party can win 31 seats in the incoming EU parliament with 32.4% of the votes. Meanwhile, a German voting station survey suggests that RN will be the largest single party in parliament with one more seat than the German conservative CDU/CSU appears to be getting.
EU parliament calculations, however, point to 31 seats for CDU/CSU and 30 for RN.
The party's big figurehead Marine Le Pen is, however, optimistic and is already looking forward to the parliamentary election on 30 June.
Macron's liberal LREM gets only 15.2% of the votes in TF1's voting station survey, compared to 14.3% for the Socialist Party, which has found new optimism under its top candidate Raphaël Glucksmann.
Wiktor Nummelin/TT
Facts: How it's going in France
TTTT
Here's how the French parties are doing in the EU election, according to a voting station survey for TV channel TF1 (with EU group in parentheses):
National Rally (EU-sceptic right-wing group ID): 32.4%
LREM (liberal RE): 15.2%
Socialist Party (social democratic SD): 14.3%
Unsubdued France (left-wing group GUE/NGL): 8.3%
Republicans (conservative EPP): 7%
Ecologists (environmentalist De Green/EFA): 5.6%
Recovery (EU-sceptic conservative ECR): 5.1%
