The news of the French new election came like a bolt from the blue, right in the middle of the intense vote counting after the European Championship.
According to Christophe Premat, who previously sat in the French National Assembly for the Socialist Party and is now a lecturer in French at Stockholm University, it was not just the far-right party National Rally's (RN) stunning success that shook the country.
Only hours after the president's TV address, demonstrators gathered on the Place de la République in central Paris. There, they shouted out their discontent over the far-right's advance.
The French have three weeks to regroup before the parliamentary election on 30 June. This is at a time when many are election-weary after the European Championship campaign and intense preparations are underway for the Summer Olympics in Paris later in July.
This is a high-stakes game President Emmanuel Macron is playing. The main opponent, RN, with Marine Le Pen's protégé Jordan Bardella as party leader, has the wind in its sails. In the European Championship, they got over 31 per cent of the votes. Macron's liberal alliance got barely half of that.
The news has, however, been hailed by some within their own ranks and by Macron's political opponents. "Democratic", "brave", "something no one can blame him for", are some of the assessments.
The message from RN is clear: if they win the parliamentary election, young Jordan Bardella will become prime minister.
Regarding the question of RN's chances in the upcoming election, Christophe Premat says this:
Emmanuel Macron is in his second and therefore final term as France's president. It will last until 2027.
France has a total of 81 seats in the European Parliament.
According to the preliminary election result on Monday, National Rally gets 30 seats and becomes the largest single party in the European Parliament.
President Macron's party coalition, Besoin d'Europe, gets 13 seats.
The coalition Réveiller l'Europe, which includes the French Socialist Party, also gets 13 seats.
On the left, the party Unsubmissive France, La France Insoumise, gets 9 seats.
The more traditional right, Les Républicains, gets 6 seats.
Source: European Parliament
