Le Pen’s populist-nationalist party got twice as many votes as the governing group of Emmanuel Macron’s globalist centrists in Sunday’s European Parliament election, prompting Macron to immediately dissolve the national parliament and call fresh French elections in a bid to regain authority for the remainder of his presidential term.
Update 2215 BST: Le Pen speaks
Shortly after President Macron announced he was calling fresh elections to buttress his position, National Rally (RN, Rassemblement National) leader Marine Le Pen took to the stage at her group’s election night party in Paris and declared their readiness to fight the snap election.
Hailing the progress of right-wing parties across Europe as the “dawn of a new day dawning for all the nations and peoples of Europe” and expressing her hope the result would finally comprehensively close “the painful globalist interlude which has caused the people of the world to suffer” Le Pen said it also confirmed the RN as the “great force for change for France”.
She told the Paris rally:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear compatriots. The French have expressed themselves and this historic election shows when people vote, the people win…
…The President… has just announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, to return the people to the polls in a few weeks time. I can only welcome this, we are ready for it… we are ready to exercise power if the French put their trust in us in these new national elections. We are ready to restore the country to defend the interests of the French people. We are ready to put an end to mass immigration. Ready to [build the strength of the economy] as a priority. And ready to begin the reindustrialization of the country. To be clear, we are ready to straighten out the country, and we are ready to relive France.
As noted by Le Monde , RN gaining 31.5 per cent of the votes means Le Pen and Bardella have grabbed the best result for any French political party at the European elections in 40 years. And that’s before you even count the fact the right-populist vote was split to some degree by the running of a rival party co-led by Le Pen’s niece Marion Marechal Le Pen, who picked up a further five and a half per cent.