French President Emmanuel Macron has come under heavy criticism after saying the far-right National Rally (RN) party and the left-wing New Popular Front coalition — front runners in the parliamentary election — risked bringing “civil war” to France.
On Monday, President Macron on podcast “Generation Do It Yourself” said that the manifesto of the National Rally (RN) party – which election pollsters put in first place – and their solutions to deal with fears over crime and immigration were based upon “stigmatisation or division”.
“I think that the solutions given by the far right are out of the question because it is categorising people in terms of their religion or origins and that is why it leads to division and to civil war,” he told the podcast.
Macron made the same criticism of the France Unbowed (LFI) extreme left-wing party, which forms part of the New Popular Front coalition.
France is preparing to vote on Sunday in the country’s most polarising ballot in decades. Macron called the parliamentary polls after the far-right National Rally scored a runaway victory in European Parliament elections earlier this month.
The election is shaping up as a showdown between the far-right RN and the left-wing New Popular Front, which is dominated by the hard-left France Unbowed.
The comments immediately drew fire from across the political spectrum, with Jordan Bardella, head of the far-right party National Rally (RN), telling broadcaster M6: “A president of the republic should not say that.”
Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) and former presidential candidate, said about Macron, “He’s always here to fuel it. The civil war for the moment, it is he who provoked it in New Caledonia,” referring to controversial voting reforms in the French Pacific territory.
Melenchon slammed Macron and French authorities for the arrest of indigenous Kanak representatives in New Caledonia after violent weeks of unrest in May.
After the National Rally got more than 30% of the votes in EU elections on June 9, Macron acknowledged the defeat of his centrist alliance, dissolved parliament, and announced snap elections, a move many observers called a risky gamble.
Left- and right-wing parties started talks to form alliances on their respective sides.
The left-wing parties announced an alliance under the name “New Popular Front,” while the right-wing faced a crisis over various formulas. Macron, for his part, called on the “centrist, progressist, democratic, and republican” bloc to unite and counter those alliances, either before or after the elections.
Eric Ciotti, the leader of the conservative Republicans (LR) – who sparked outrage among allies by personally agreeing an election pact with the RN – accused the French president of being irresponsible.
“This is a strategy of fear,” he said, speaking on BFMTV.
RN heavyweight Marine Le Pen said Macron’s argument was “weak” and showed “he thinks he’s lost this election”.
Patrick Kanner, head of the Socialists in the Senate, said Macron’s remarks showed he was fighting for his political survival.
“We are faced with someone who no longer controls anything,” he said.
Some polls have suggested the RN could win 35 to 36 percent in the first-round vote on Sunday, ahead of the left-wing alliance at 27 to 29 percent and Macron’s centrists coming third on 19 to 22 percent.
The legislative elections will be held in two rounds: the first on Sunday, June 30, and the second a week later, on July 7.
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