Update (4:20 p.m. ET):
After a historic defeat to Marine Le Pen's right-wing party in Sunday's European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron said. dissolve the French parliament.
Macron said France will hold new elections on June 30 and July 7. a high-stakes maneuver that the WSJ said “surprise” the nation after projections based on early vote counts came in for Sunday's European Parliament elections. Projections showed the national rally getting around 31% of the vote, double the support for Macron's Renova Party.
Bardella and Le Pen humiliate Macron in the European elections. Macron dissolves the National Assembly and calls new elections in a month. pic.twitter.com/oSDnUjl5EJ
— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) June 9, 2024
“This is a serious and weighty decision, but above all it is an act of trust,” Macron said. “Confidence in you, confidence in the ability of the French people to make the right decision for themselves and for future generations.”
Bardella and Le Pen humiliate Macron in the European elections. Macron dissolves the National Assembly and calls new elections in a month. Putin laughs. https://t.co/gulU3Tbp05 pic.twitter.com/2bfcqf0ctL
— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) June 9, 2024
Macron's decision to call parliamentary elections opens the door for his party. which is deeply unpopular at the moment, to give even more seats to rival parties in France's National Assembly, the lower house of the country's Parliament.
If that happens, Macron could be forced to appoint a prime minister from another party, such as the centre-right Les Républicains, in a power-sharing deal known in France as “cohabitation”.
“A dissolution means a coexistence,” said Alain Duhamel, a leading political analyst.
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While we await the results of the European Parliament vote (previewed here), Germany's ballot boxes are ready and are a disaster for both French President Macron's alliance, which was rolled by Marine Le Penand for the Social Democrats of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who crashed against his own worst result in the elections to the European Parliament On Sunday, as conservative and right-wing parties soared across the old continent, a result that will help tilt the European Parliament further towards a more anti-immigration and anti-green stance.
According to preliminary results from five countries, right-wing parties are estimated to have won at least 33 of the 174 available seats in Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, according to the official polls to the success of these countries, compared to the 19 seats of the last elections of 2019. And -as the ultra-liberal FT admits-“.the increase, at the expense of the liberal and green parties, would complicate the candidacy of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for a second term as head of the EU executive.”
In Germany, Chancellor Scholz's Social Democrats suffered their worst ever result, falling to third place with 14% of the vote behind populists and nationalists. Alternative for Germany, which has become the second German party in the European Parliament with 16.4%. The conservative CDU/CSU alliance was on course for a comfortable victory with 29.6%, according to a Sunday exit poll by public broadcaster ARD. The other two parties in Scholz's ruling alliance, the Greens and the Free Democrats, got 12% and 5% respectively.
How reported during the night, German exit polls are among the first results of the European elections, which began on Thursday and will conclude on Sunday, and will determine the composition of the bloc's legislative assembly. The result will establish which leaders have the most influence to claim top EU jobs, including the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council.
The catastrophic result of Scholz's coalition highlights the increasing difficulty the German government has in directing European politics. Support for Scholz's ruling alliance in Berlin has fallen to historic lows in recent months. with the combined support of the three parties currently around 35%, down from more than 50% in the 2021 federal election.
As Bloomberg reports, CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann questioned whether Scholz retains the authority to lead the country and blamed the ruling coalition's policies for the rise of the AfD. “It was what was on the election posters, so it really should be subject to a vote of confidence.” Linnemann said.
The AfD managed to make substantial gains despite experiencing a series of setbacks in recent weeks involving bribery and espionage scandals. The Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, or BSW, which she co-founded in January after breaking away from the Left party, got 5.7%.
Kevin Kuehnert, the SPD's general secretary, said the party would not look for “scapegoats” and insisted it had been the right decision to make Scholz a central figure in the election campaign despite his relatively low approval rating .
“For us, this is an extremely bitter result,” Kuehnert said in an interview with ARD. “We will have to look at where we have not been good in our mobilization”, he added. “The promise now is that we will fight this.”
Kuehnert said the priority for the coalition in the coming weeks is to negotiate a deal on next year's budget, which has been another source of infighting in the tripartite alliance.
Amid continued losses to the establishment, right-wing and conservative parties in Europe are set to pick up more seats compared to the last election five years ago, as migration swings to the top of the agenda policy, while the EU's ambitious climate targets may clash. bigger obstacles.
Even so, at the EU level, centrist left and right parties must maintain control of the majority. This means a degree of continuity in key policies at a time of immense geopolitical uncertainty with Russia's war against Ukraine spreading to the east and an increasingly assertive China.
As beyond discussed during the night, The EU also faces challenges such as maintaining fiscal sustainability while investing in a greener future, increasing the competitiveness of European manufacturing and strengthening defense capabilities in the face of the prospect of Donald Trump's return to the US presidency, which could affect everything from trade to environmental policy. .
Germany's next national vote will take place in autumn next year. The ruling parties are expected to do just as badly in their next major electoral test: three regional votes in September in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg with the AfD leads the polls in all three states, but is unlikely to enter government as all other parties have ruled out joining it in a coalition.
In the Netherlands, Dutch conservative Geert Wilders made significant gains on Thursday. although it failed to win a majority of Dutch seats in the European Parliament. This victory was claimed by a coalition of leftist parties.
However, in perhaps the biggest shock of all, the French right has inflicted a stunning defeat on the Macron alliance: with Le Pen gathering 32-33% of the votes to 15% of the Macron group according to the polls.
🔴 LATEST – EU elections: Le Pen's far-right leads with 31.5% of the vote in France, Macron's party stands at 15.2% (exit polls) https://t.co/5NBONjC02t pic.twitter.com/95e7c9Dnxa
— FRANCE 24 – Breaking (@BreakingF24) June 9, 2024
According to AFP, voter turnout in France was up two points as of 5 p.m., with 45.26 percent of eligible voters casting ballots compared to 43.29 percent in 2019. the EU is generally low, but the last election in 2019 showed the first increase. in 30 years with a share of 50.7 percent.
France, Ifop Fiducial exit poll:
European Parliament elections
RN-ID: 32.4%
Bd'E-RE: 15.2%
Rl'ES&D: 14.3%
LFI-LEFT: 8.3%
LR-EPP: 7.0%
LE-G/EFA: 5.6%
REC-ECR: 5.1%
…Special Elections Page: https://t.co/1An2baUJmP #EuropeanElections2024 #EP2024 pic.twitter.com/DW6p162kap
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) June 9, 2024
In Austria, the right-wing, national-conservative, anti-immigrant Freedom Party was in the lead with an estimated 27 percent, Austrian national broadcaster ORF said. If the figure is confirmed later on Sunday, it would be the first time the OFP has won the European Parliament elections in Austria.
The conservative People's Party (OVP) and the Social Democrats (SPO) are currently too close to call, he said, estimated to have won 23.5% and 23% of the vote respectively.
First trend forecast for EU elections in Austria: FPÖ wins election, neck-and-neck race for second place between ÖVP and SPÖ, Greens lose, NEOS win #Europawahl2024 #UEelections2024 pic.twitter.com/IN0lGAaQcP
— ORF Breaking News (@ORFBreakingNews) June 9, 2024
Finally in Spain, more of the same anti-establishment, anti-liberal and anti-immigrant tsunami:
- *SPAIN'S OPPOSITION CONSERVATIVES lead the EU vote: EXIT POLL
Some 360 ​​million people can vote for the 720 lawmakers who will serve in the EU assembly for the next five years, 96 of them from Germany. Most of the 27 member nations hold their votes on Sunday, and the results are due overnight. France results are due after 20:00 local time.
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