French President Emmanuel Macron has been punished for using war as a political tool against his rivals, his former presidential rival and president of the National Rally (RN) party group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen, has claimed.
The party stormed to victory in the European elections on Sunday. Le Pen has accused the French president of “doing everything he can to increase the pressure, which could lead to an escalation tomorrow,” referring to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The firebrand nationalist previously described Macron’s policy of war as a huge communication failure.
“War is serious! The Ukrainian people are experiencing it, and we cannot use it to try to trap our opponents!” Le Pen said, suggesting that Macron may be deliberately stoking tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war so that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not know how far the West is prepared to go.
However, in the European Parliament elections, the National Rally won a landslide victory, with Macron’s centrist coalition coming a distant second. In response, Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the French National Assembly and called a snap election for later this month.
Experts say that Marine Le Pen’s party is the favorite to win the election, which could cast a different light on France’s war plans.
Gergely Fejérdy, chief political analyst of Hungary’s Foreign Policy Institute, told Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet that in the wake of RN’s European election victory, Le Pen’s party’s popularity should propel it to be the largest power in the new parliament following the early elections Macron was forced to call.
He said that while the previous pattern showed that Le Pen’s party could not convert its European success into national politics, this time could be different.
“This could be an exception because there is a lot of indignation and internal discontent in France against Macron’s policies,” Gergely Fejérdy stressed.
The party is expected to be the first and largest party in the National Assembly, but the big question is whether it can form a coalition with anyone.
Talks took place between Le Pen, her party’s president Jordan Bardella, and Marion Maréchal, lead candidate of rival right-wing group Reconquête, on Monday night over plans to form a united front ahead of the elections to ensure a right-wing majority parliament.