France's Macron dissolves parliament, announces snap polls

ANKARA

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday dissolved the lower chamber of the French parliament, or the National Assembly, and called snap elections after the far-right National Rally (RN) inflicted a heavy defeat on his camp in European elections.

The first round of the legislative elections will be held on June 30, and the second round on July 7, Macron said in a broadcast speech after the far-right party National Rally got 32% of the votes in the EU elections.

"This is not a good result for the parties that defend Europe, including the presidential majority (in France)," Macron said.

The president criticized the far-right parties for opposing progress in Europe in recent years, including "economic revival, common protection of our borders, supporting farmers, support for Ukraine."

"Those parties advance everywhere on the continent. In France, their representative reached almost 40% of the votes cast," Macron said.

"The rise of the nationalists and demagogues is dangerous not only for our nation but also for Europe," he added.

Jordan Bardella, the head of the National Rally, was way ahead of Renaissance party’s Valerie Hayer, backed by the government and President Emmanuel Macron.

Hayer received 15.2% of the votes and her party ranked second, according to poll estimations gathered by Elabe.

Earlier, the National Rally called on the president to dissolve the parliament, with Bardella describing the preliminary results as an "unprecedented defeat for the current government."

The center-left list of Raphael Glucksmann is likely to rank third with 14% for now, and the left-wing party La France Insoumise with Manon Aubry is fourth with 9.3% according to estimations.

The turnout rate was around 45.26% in France as of 5 p.m. (1500GMT), slightly higher than in 2019 (43.29%), French media outlets reported. The country had around 50 million voters to send 81 politicians to the EU parliament.