Emmanuel Macron announces the dissolution of the National Assembly, the international press in shock
“I have heard your message, your concerns and I will not leave them unanswered.” Thunderclap at the Élysée. Emmanuel Macron decided on the evening of Sunday June 9 to dissolve the National Assembly, in the wake of the “bad results for the parties which defend Europe” in the European elections.
“In France, representatives of the extreme right reach almost 40% of the votes cast”underlined the President of the Republic, looking serious, in a speech broadcast just an hour after the publication of the first estimates placing the National Rally well ahead of the continental vote with 31.5% of the votes. “This is a situation that I cannot resolve. (…) I cannot act as if nothing had happened.”
The Head of State therefore chooses, under Article 12 of the Constitution of the Ve Republic, to send voters to the polls for early legislative elections, on June 30 and July 7.
The announcement took the entire international press by surprise. “Macron should not make any major political decisions in the short term”, wrote it Financial Times a few minutes before the start of the speech. Then quickly, the correspondents of the foreign press got into working order.
“President Macron was pushed towards a radical decision”, notes the Italian daily La Repubblica, amazed. across the Rhine, Der Spiegel discusses on his live broadcast dedicated to the elections “a political coup”. According to Britta Sandberg, correspondent in France for the German weekly, the president consulted with “several political advisors, as well as with the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher”before announcing his decision.
Still in Germany, there South German Zeitung sees in this decision by Macron a “direct consequence” of the RN’s victory in the Europeans. This one was “predictable”, specified Olivier Meiler, the French correspondent for the German left-wing newspaper, before the presidential announcements. But if “abstention had been high, the score of the extreme right would have been delegitimized, as in previous elections”. However, participation was almost as high as in 1994, “with almost 52% of those registered”.
The risk of an “ungovernable” France
“Emmanuel Macron’s decision, on the eve of the Summer Olympic Games which will begin in Paris in July, opens a period of deep political uncertainty in France”, observe the New York Times :
“If the National Rally repeats its performance in the national elections, the country could become virtually ungovernable, with Mr. Macron facing a Parliament hostile to everything he believes in.”
“He is already very weakened and barely manages to push through his reforms”, supports El Mundo, to Madrid. The outcome of this day of June 9 “furthermore opens the way for Marine Le Pen in view of the presidential elections of 2027, in which (Macron) will no longer be able to stand”
On the other side of the Pyrenees again, La Vanguardia evoked “an earthquake”a dissolution “by surprise” and which represents “a huge political risk”.
“It is clear that Macron is taking a very difficult gamble, counting on the fact that, ultimately, the French, who wanted to give him a vote of sanction in the European elections, will think twice before handing over power to Macron. ‘far right”.
This dissolution, deciphers the Spanish newspaper, is “an attempt to mobilize the electorate who abstained to get involved in the face of the possibility of a potentially dramatic change of direction in French political life. With an impact on the whole of Europe, even more so in the context of the war in Ukraine”.
