Macron reeling after making 'Brexit gamble' that may cost him French election
Emmanuel Macron is making the same mistakes that David Cameron made during the Brexit referendum, according to political analysts.
Emmanuel Macron stunned France and the rest of Europe last week after he announced a snap election. Mr Macron's daring election call followed a humiliating night for the French leader in the European Parliament election. The National Rally party of Marine Le Pen trounced Mr Macron's Renaissance party, earning double the amount of votes.
The French leader is understood to be trying to make the election into a referendum on Ms Le Pen, with the assumption that French voters will not want to hand her far-right party power in the National Assembly.
However, experts have compared Mr Macron's gamble to David Cameron, who as British PM called a 2016 referendum on Brexit, similarly expecting the public to vote it down.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe for the Eurasia Group consulting firm, told the Wall Street Journal: “David Cameron bet the house and lost. He bet Project Fear would win. He was wrong. Macron is doing the same."
Recent polls suggest that the National Rally party would win the first round of the French legislative election with 31 percent, while President Macron’s party would come in third with 18 percent.
An alliance of left-wing parties would get 28 percent of the vote and land second place, according to the survey by Elabe for BFM TV and La Tribune Dimanche. The pollster interviewed 1,502 adults on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Other polls show Ms Le Pen's party winning just short of a majority in the French National Assembly but tripling the number of seats they won in 2022.
Mr Macron has insisted he will not resign if his party loses the election and Jordan Bardella, Ms Le Pen’s political heir, becomes prime minister.
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The French president said that he wanted to give voters the chance for "clarification" after suggesting that many only voted for the National Rally last week out of anger.
The surprise announcement took many in Mr Macron's party by surprise, including his prime minister Gabriel Attal, who only found out about the plans hours before the French leader dissolved the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, France’s stock market is heading for its biggest weekly fall in more than two years, as analysts warned of the risk of a Liz Truss-style market panic following the election.
The vote will be held over two rounds on 30 June and 7 July.
