Today’s Top Story

French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the lower house of parliament yesterday and called for snap legislative elections, with the first round taking place on June 30. The decision comes after the French far-right party National Rally, or RN, decimated Macron’s Renaissance party in European parliamentary elections. (New York Times)

Our Take

The EU election results in France were not particularly surprising. The RN has for more than a decade fared better in European parliamentary elections than in French national elections. In part, that’s because of the different electoral systems—the European Parliament uses direct proportional representation, while France’s parliament uses single-member constituencies and a two-round system. Turnout is also lower in EU elections, and voters are more often driven by anti-incumbent and anti-EU grievances, which helps the far right.

In fact, this is the third time in a row that the RN has finished in first place in EU elections in France. The prior two wins, though, were much narrower. In 2019, the RN finished with the same number of seats in the European Parliament as Macron’s party. This time, its victory was decisive, winning more than double the number of seats, largely at the French president’s expense.

What is surprising is that Macron would call for snap elections, but it’s also consistent with the logic of his presidency. Macron’s calling card has been to face political threats head on. That could be seen as far back as 2018, when he responded to the Yellow Vest protest movement by holding town hall meetings around the country to respond directly and in person to local grievances, and as recently as last month, when he flew to New Caledonia after several days of violent unrest there.

In some respects, these responses have earned Macron a well-deserved reputation of political courage. But, as underscored by the crisis in New Caledonia, the issues he has faced down are also usually of his own making, in large part because Macron’s leadership style is characterized by top-down decision-making, centralized in his own hands and involving minimal dialogue and consultation. He more often challenges than retreats, making him a polarizing and alienating figure and surprisingly unpopular for a political maverick who has handily won two elections, albeit against the even more polarizing and alienating Marine Le Pen.

In this case, Macron’s challenge is to the French voters who clearly disavowed him in favor of the RN in EU elections. They may have done so in a low-stakes vote for the distant European Parliament, the weakest institution in the EU. But will they do so in national elections, which have much more direct and immediate consequences for the French electorate?

Clearly, it’s a bet that Macron feels he can afford to make—his coalition is already a minority government in parliament, and for the past two years he has had to rely on one-off majorities cobbled together to pass policies on a case-by-case basis.

But it is still a massive bet nonetheless, one that could leave him politically paralyzed for the remaining three years of his second and final term in office. In the last legislative elections in 2022, the RN went from holding just eight seats in the 577-seat lower house to holding 89 seats. The far-right party could very well end up with more after this vote, giving them even more national prominence heading into the next presidential election in 2027.

Once again, Macron is playing with fire. But at this point in his presidency, he resembles what the French call a pompier pyromane, or pyromaniac firefighter, referring to someone who lights fires in order to put them out. Macron has shown himself perfectly capable of the former. It’s the latter where he has often come up short.

On Our Radar

A new opinion poll shows that 70 percent of respondents in Thailand were not confident about the government’s ability to address the country’s issues, and two-thirds were either not quite satisfied or not satisfied at all with the government’s performance thus far.

Thai PM Srettha Thavisin took office last year after general elections in May 2023 delivered a rebuke to the previous military-dominated government. But controversially, Srettha’s Pheu Thai party formed a government that includes some military-aligned parties, and since then has done little to address Thailand’s pressing issues, as Joshua Kurlantzick wrote last month.

Thailand’s Government Promised Change. It’s Delivering Chaos

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A subsidiary of British American Tobacco Company is lobbying Pakistan’s government to allow it to produce “10-packs” of cigarettes in the country for export to Sudan. The 10-packs are banned for sale in more than 80 countries, including Pakistan, because they are smaller and cheaper than normal packs of cigarettes, which the World Health Organization says makes them more appealing to children.

Big Tobacco has gone to great lengths in recent years to portray themselves as responsible stakeholders. But as Benoît Gomis wrote in 2022, the industry also has a long history of exploiting fragile states and conflict zones, where there is less institutional capacity to hold it to account.

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The results of European Parliament elections over the weekend showed that voters largely backed centrist groups, although far-right parties surged in France and Germany.

Read about why Green parties across Europe have lost much of their support in this briefing by John Boyce, and why these EU elections felt more consequential than in the past in the Daily Review from Thursday.

Iran’s Guardian Council approved six candidates to run in the country’s special presidential election on June 28, which follows the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. Read the Daily Review about Raisi’s death for more on what Iran may be looking for in its next president.

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