Can Macron still outplay Le Pen?

Petulance, panic and performance. President Macron’s broadcast following the evisceration of his party in last weekend’s elections for the European parliament had elements of all three. Wearing a black tie as if in mourning, he looked shocked, exhausted and angry. ‘The rise of the nationalists and demagogues,’ he said, ‘is a threat not only to our nation but also to our Europe and to France’s place in Europe and in the world… The extreme right is both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country. So at the end of this day, I can’t pretend that nothing has happened. I decided to give you the choice. Therefore, I will dissolve the Assemblée nationale tonight.’

Was this an honest acknowledgement that he has finally recognised how deeply he has antagonised French voters? It’s doubtful.

Either way, his abrupt decision to call an election seemed baffling. It has been done before: by François Mitterrand in May 1988 and Jacques Chirac in April 1997. But they had a better chance of winning. In the European elections, Macron’s Renaissance party won less than half the votes of the National Rally (RN): the party of his long-term presidential rival Marine Le Pen.

Renaissance is all but certain to lose the Assembly elections (first round, 30 June; second round, a week later). Even if it is not guaranteed that Le Pen and her chief accomplice Jordan Bardella will win an absolute majority, the result looks likely to be a further blow to Macron’s immense self-regard on the eve of the Olympic Games in Paris – something the President has long pencilled in as his climactic moment of glory on the world stage.

‘I am astonished, like almost everyone else,’ said Alain Duhamel, Macron’s biographer. ‘It’s not madness, it’s not despair, but it is a huge risk from an impetuous man who prefers taking the initiative to being subjected to events.’