Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/10/french-president-macron-calls-election-after-far-right-thrashes-his-party-in-eu-vote.html
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Thank you for posting this! And not the least out of hope that some parliamentary strategists in the comments can explain the Sunak, and now Macron strategy, to gormless yanks. (“Sire, the barbarians are pounding at the gates!” “ok… hmm… well, let’s let them in and see what they do.”) All seven dimensional parliamentary chess no doubt…?
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The far-right has done well in elections to the European parliament—well enough to dominate headlines, but not quite well enough to win.
Not in the short term, but this is further normalisation in Europe of what have been fringe positions since 1945. It’s as if large portions of the population on the continent and in the UK have no idea why all those Allied soldiers flung themselves against Hitler’s Atlantic Wall in France 80 years ago almost to the day.
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Honestly I think is the first time I am a bit scared by some election results at my country, with right and far right parties growing at a faster pace, plus a “right wing” youtuber joke party getting 3 seats.
I was called for polling duty (in spain is not voluntary) and I was surprised by the amount the right wing partiy votes cast in my area during the recount, which has been traditionally center-to-left.
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The Conservative polling numbers have been in the toilet since the Partygate scandal under Johnson, and Truss only sank them further.
Sunak’s position was that he had to hold a general election by January next near, which realistically meant by November this year to avoid spoiling Christmas. He’s gone early because there was almost certainly nothing to be gained by prolonging the agony. It’s impossible to repair the damage of 14 years of misrule in a few months.
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I think the reason Macron called the snap election is so that the opposition parties will be disorganized, and the incumbents will mostly cruise to an easy victory. Our MP, who’s already anti-immigration and is well liked, will probably pull out an easy win. I’m not even sure who her competition is at this point, but there’s nobody obvious that I like better.
(For comparison if anyone else posts from France, I’m pretty much center-right by EU standards.)
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We are talking about the Tories here. I honestly expected a January 2 election, for maximum shittiness.
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I just became a French citizen less than a month ago and I feel like I have been thrown from my comfortable chair next to the pool directly into the deep end…
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