The president is trailing the hard right – and forthcoming European elections could leave him a political lame duck
In the latest of his visionary speeches on the future of Europe, Emmanuel Macron called for the EU to transform itself into a military power or face “death”. Yet his own presidency of France may be about to enter a long twilight zone unless he can reverse his party’s deepening slump in June’s European parliament election.
Macron’s unpopularity is the main reason why his centrist pro-European Renaissance party is trailing a distant second in opinion polls behind Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally (RN). Le Pen’s list is led by Jordan Bardella, 29, the rising star in the populist anti-immigration party. Renaissance, whose list is headed by little-known MEP Valérie Hayer, is down to 17.5% in the latest survey while the RN is on 31%. The two parties were neck-and-neck in the last European election, five years ago .
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/01/france-emmanuel-macron-europe-president-marine-le-pen
Author : Paul Taylor
Publish date : 2024-05-01 06:00:49
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