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President Emmanuel Macron stunned France on Sunday when he called snap parliamentary elections after his centrist alliance was trounced by Marine Le Pen’s far-right movement in a European parliamentary vote.

Exit polls showed the Rassemblement National (RN) secured 31.5 per cent of the vote compared with 14.5 per cent for the French president’s centrist alliance, a stinging blow to Macron. He appeared to have only narrowly avoided a humiliating third place behind the centre-left, which took 14 per cent of the vote.

“For me, who always considers that a united, strong, independent Europe is good for France, this is a situation which I cannot countenance,” he said. “I have decided to give you back the choice of our parliamentary future with a vote.”

The first round of the parliamentary elections will be held in just three weeks, on June 30, with a run-off on July 7.

The dissolution is an extraordinary gamble by the French leader who has already lost his parliamentary majority after winning a second term as president two years ago. His alliance could be crushed, which would force him to appoint a prime minister from another party, such as the centre-right Les Republicains or even the far-right RN, in an arrangement known as a “cohabitation”.

In such a scenario, Macron would be left with little power over domestic affairs with three years left as president.

Macron said he believed a vote was needed to calm the volatile debates in the French parliament and achieve clarity on the direction of the country. Elysée officials said he had been considering it for some time to address gridlock in parliament.

François Bayrou, a centrist politician whose party is in alliance with Macron, said the president was aiming to “end the impasse” in politics by asking voters a simple question of “whether France really recognises itself in the proposals of the far-right”.

Le Pen celebrated the victory and hailed Macron’s response to it. “This shows that when the people vote, the people win,” she said in a victory speech. “I can only salute the president’s decision to call early elections . . . We are ready to exercise power if the French give us their backing.”

RN has 88 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly, making it the biggest opposition party. Macron’s centrist alliance has 249, so has had to cut deals with other parties to further his agenda.

There have been three previous political cohabitations in France — where a president has to share power with a prime minister and government from an opposing party — since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.

Alain Duhamel, a veteran political analyst, predicted: “A dissolution means a cohabitation.”

In addition to the RN’s big win in Sunday’s European elections, another far-right party, Reconquête, was estimated to have won 5.3 per cent of the vote.

The margin of victory could lend huge momentum to Le Pen’s ambition to succeed Macron as president in 2027. The decision to call snap elections was presented by people close to the president as a high-stakes attempt to thwart her advance.

“This is a severe defeat for Macron given that he has been president for seven years and he has long said his goal is to combat the far-right,” said Bruno Cautrès, an academic and pollster at Sciences Po in Paris. 

The loss came after Macron had argued that the future of the EU was at stake because of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, economic competition with the US and China, as well as the need to fight climate change — all topics on which he said the far-right could not be trusted.

Yet the message did not move French voters, who have historically used European elections as protest votes against the incumbent president.

“Given that Emmanuel Macron has sought to position himself as the intellectual leader of Europe, the fact that French voters don’t follow him is problematic for him,” added Cautrès. 

Voting estimates showed the RN’s list, led by the charismatic 28-year-old party chief Jordan Bardella, had won almost as many votes as the combined total of Macron’s alliance, led by a little-known MEP Valerie Hayer, and the traditional parties of the centre-right and centre-left.

“In according more than 30 per cent of their votes to us, the French have delivered their verdict and marked the determination of our country to change the direction of the EU,” said Bardella in a speech from his campaign headquarters. “This is only the beginning.”

The results show the rising popularity of the RN since 2019 when they won 23.3 per cent of the vote in the last European elections, coming in only slightly ahead of Macron’s list which took 22.4 per cent.

Additional reporting by Adrienne Klasa

How will the European parliamentary elections change the EU? Join Ben Hall, Europe editor, and colleagues in Paris, Rome, Brussels and Germany for a subscriber webinar on June 12. Register now and put your questions to our panel at ft.com/euwebinar

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Students listen to their teacher during their first day of transitional kindergarten at Tustin Ranch Elementary School in Tustin, CA, August 11, 2021. (Photo by Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

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Billions of dollars in federal COVID funding is set to expire for K-12 schools.

Educators across the country say the extra money helped students catch up, and plenty of students still need that support.

Some schools say losing the the money, received over the last few years, will lead to cancelation of crucial programs, budget cutbacks and possible layoffs.

NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Wall Street Journal education reporter Matt Barnum about the impact of expiring federal funds on schools across the country.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Erika Ryan and Connor Donevan, with audio engineering by Kwesi Lee. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Far-right parties have made significant gains in the EU elections, winning the vote in France and performing well in Germany and other countries, in results that will help tilt the European parliament towards a more anti-immigration and anti-green stance.

An initial projection by the European Parliament suggested that far and hard right groups were on course to win more than 160 seats out of a total 720 lawmakers in the next parliament, up from at least 135 last time.

The centre-right EPP was on track to win 181 seats, with the Socialists and Democrats in second place with 135 seats and the liberal Renew group 82 seats, holding on to third. The Greens are set to be the biggest losers falling from 71 seats in 2019 to 53, the estimates show.

The French Rassemblement National party led by Marine Le Pen was expected to have come first with around 33 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls on Sunday, in a stinging rebuke to the centrist alliance of president Emmanuel Macron that secured around 15 per cent of the vote.

“This result is emphatic. Our countrymen have expressed a desire for change and a path for the future,” said Jordan Bardella, who led the far-right RN’s campaign list.

In Germany, the three parties in Olaf Scholz’s coalition were all overtaken by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second, behind the conservative CDU/CSU opposition. Ultraconservative and nationalist parties also won or made significant gains in Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, the exit polls showed.

“Kiss goodbye to the European Green Deal,” said Simon Hix, politics professor at the European University Institute in Florence, referring to the ambitious plan to hit net zero emissions by 2050.

“This is a pro-farmer, pro-car industry majority.”

He said the centre right European People’s Party of European commission president Ursula von der Leyen had become even more powerful, since it could work with parties to its left or right.

But the surge, at the expense of liberal and Green parties, would complicate von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as head of the EU’s executive.

The AfD defied recent scandals to take second place in Germany with 16.4 per cent of the vote. It was one of the AfD’s best results in a nationwide election, although lower than the 22 per cent share polls suggested in January.

“This is a super result . . . a record result,” said party co-leader Tino Chrupalla. “Our voters remained loyal to us and we beat the party of the chancellor, the Greens and the liberals.”

Its success came despite a flurry of negative headlines, many of them concerning its lead candidate in the election, Maximilian Krah. His staffer was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, and he sparked outrage by downplaying the crimes of the SS. The number two on the AfD’s list is meanwhile being investigated for corruption.

The result was a disaster for the three parties in Scholz’s fragile coalition — the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the liberal FDP. The Greens saw their share of the vote slump by more than 8 percentage points while the SPD garnered just 14 per cent — its worst-ever result in a nationwide vote.

The opposition centre-right CDU-CSU won the election with 29 seats, the SPD won just 14, the Greens 12 and the FDP 5.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV) won 7 seats, up from 1 last time, although that gave it slightly fewer seats than a Labour/Green party alliance.

The EPP performed strongly in Germany, Spain, Greece and some other countries, the data forecast.

“We are once again the strongest force in Germany,” von der Leyen said in response to the early projections from her home country. “Today we celebrate. From tomorrow we will continue working.”

To secure a second term as commission president, von der Leyen needs a majority of the 720-seat parliament to back her. Final results are expected early on Monday.

Additional reporting by Laura Dubois in Brussels