Connect with us

World

The far right will probably fall short in French legislative elections

Published

on

The far right will probably fall short in French legislative elections

By Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Chief Data Scientist, Centre for European Policy Studies

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

This is one heck of a chess move by President Macron. Whether it succeeds or not, it will make history. But it is a much more calculated move than it seems, Pierre-Alexandre Balland writes.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sunday’s European elections stunned Europe as far-right parties surged in France.

The National Rally is set to claim about 31% of votes, more than doubling President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party at 15%.

Advertisement

Macron immediately announced, “I have decided to give you back the choice of your parliamentary future through voting. Therefore, I dissolve the National Assembly tonight”, calling for rapid legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July.

This rare move, which last took place in 1997, is a bit like King Arthur’s testing the gods’ trust by reinserting Excalibur.

Will a far-right government lead one of the EU’s largest members by the Paris Olympics?

Macron’s decision to call new legislative elections has been described as bold, reckless, and desperate.

In truth, it’s a calculated risk with potentially higher rewards than inaction. Most likely, the far right will not win the French legislative elections.

What happens if Macron’s strategy succeeds?

It would counter the prevailing narrative that the far right is taking over France. Today’s headlines suggest this trend and it’s crucial to address it early.

Advertisement

By returning to the voters, Macron aims to show that the European election results don’t mirror the wider political sentiment in France.

This move could also mobilise those worried about the far right’s rise, serving as a call to action. With Macron’s pro-European stance, this could significantly curb the far right’s momentum both in the EU and globally.

The National Rally — known as the National Front until 2018 — already secured first place in the European Parliament elections in 2019 and before that in 2014. But historically, the far right struggles to mirror its EU success in French national elections.

Let’s look at the popular vote. In the 2019 European elections, the National Rally received a total of 5,286,939 votes. However, three years later, during the French legislative elections, it only received 3,589,269 votes.

There is a 32.1% cut when you move from the EU to the national level. Using the same rate, the 7,765,944 votes of 9 June would shrink to 5,272,250.

Advertisement

In 2022, the winner (Ensemble) gathered 8,002,419 votes, and in 2017, LREM won with 7,826,245 votes. Macron is betting that the National Rally will not find an additional 2.5 million voters in less than a month.

Much more complex (and accurate) modelling strategies exist, but the main point is that replicating this win at the French level is unlikely and would represent a seismic political shift.

It’s not one round in the ring — it’s two

The drop from EU to French election results comes from different voting systems. France’s two-round electoral system for legislative elections is a significant barrier to far-right parties.

While these parties may perform well in the first round when traditional parties are divided, the second round sees a shift. Here, voters from both left and right often unite behind more moderate candidates to prevent a far-right victory, a strategy known as the “Republican Front”.

Despite making gains, the far right struggles to build the broad coalition necessary to win in the final round.

Advertisement
ADVERTISEMENT

And in French parliamentary elections, results are decided locally across 577 constituencies, favouring parties with broad, evenly spread support. The National Rally may dominate specific regions but fail to achieve the widespread vote distribution necessary to win multiple seats.

Larger parties not only have more uniform support but also more resources to get strong, locally recognized candidates across all constituencies, enhancing their chances of securing a majority. The National Rally will struggle to find competitive candidates across all constituencies quickly.

And there are peculiar reasons why French voters might lean far-right in EU elections but opt for moderation nationally. Economic issues, where Macron’s party shows strength, dominate national elections and sway undecided voters.

Additionally, the perceived low impact of the European Parliament on daily life makes EU elections a safe venue for protest votes with minimal consequences. This is true in France and in Europe more generally — but Bardella’s notable absence in Strasbourg amplifies this low-risk perception.

However, the path to becoming prime minister and governing is much steeper. Macron appears to be counting on catching the National Rally off-guard and highlighting their program’s inconsistencies.

ADVERTISEMENT

What happens if the National Rally wins?

One cannot downplay the growing influence of the far right in French politics and Europe in general.

These parties have capitalized on a wave of discontent among voters who are dissatisfied with the current government’s policies on economic development, immigration, and security.

Advertisement

So what if, against what I believe to be all odds, the National Rally wins and gets to govern? Then Bardella and Le Pen will be in the driver’s seat. It is much harder than being in the opposition.

If it governs badly, it will suffer a huge setback during the 2027 elections. And if it governs effectively and resolves every economic, social, and environmental issue, then we’ll all live happily ever after. So even in this less likely scenario, Macron’s strategy might be a winning one.

I don’t have a crystal ball, and this is one heck of a chess move by President Macron. Whether it succeeds or not, it will make history. But it is a much more calculated move than it seems.

ADVERTISEMENT

Pierre-Alexandre Balland is Chief Data Scientist at the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels-based think tank.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at view@euronews.com to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

Advertisement

World

Miley Cyrus, Jisoo, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino and More Photos from the Dior Cruise Show in Los Angeles

Published

on

Miley Cyrus, Jisoo, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino and More Photos from the Dior Cruise Show in Los Angeles

Jonathan Anderson gathered some of Hollywood’s most famous faces for the front row at his Dior Cruise Collection 2027 fashion show at Los Angeles’ LACMA on Wednesday night.

Spotted taking their seats underneath the new David Geffen Galleries were Miley Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, Al Pacino, Jisoo of Blackpink, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jeff Goldblum, Tracee Ellis Ross, Role Model, Grace Gummer, Dominic Fike, Miranda Kerr, Mikey Madison, Paul W. Downs, Leslie Mann, Miles Teller, Macaulay Culkin and Bill Pullman.

Guests entered LACMA through a simple entrance on Wilshire Boulevard lined on both sides by gaggles of photographers (some were apparently extras hired to act like shutterbugs). Inside, there were large stone-like step-and-repeats for more photos. Attendees were gifted Dior blankets at their seats as well as a mock script titled “Wilshire Boulevard” starring Anderson explaining the show’s noir theme and looks.

An after-party took place at Chateau Marmont.

Miley Cyrus told me she was grateful Anderson chose her hometown for the event. “I love that they came to L.A.,” she said. “That’s the best part.”

Advertisement

Of her all-denim look, the Grammy winner said, “What I love about L.A. is that it’s casual, so just stopping by to enjoy. Not overdone.”

Meanwhile, following the success of her “Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special,” I asked Cyrus if a reboot of the Disney Channel sitcom was in the works. “I don’t know about all that,” she said, smiling.

Cyrus cracked, “You always get me in trouble.”

Cyrus has credited my question about her possible plans to mark the two-decade milestone earlier in the year that prompted her and Disney to develop the special.

Tracee Ellis Ross also said she was “so pleased” the show took place in Los Angeles: “I don’t have to get on a plane.”

Advertisement

See all the best celebrity looks at the Dior fashion show below.

Subscribe to “Just for Variety” email alerts here. Click the “From the Magazine” box.

Continue Reading

World

Non-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post

Published

on

Non-Jewish professor says he was fired for calling out Hamas supporters in online post

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

A non-Jewish Canadian professor says he was fired from his university for defending Israel in a social media post as antisemitism exploded across Canada following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

Paul Finlayson told Fox News Digital that he lost his job at Canada’s University of Guelph-Humber after taking a strong stance online about the massacre and kidnapping of Israelis and foreigners — including Americans and Canadians.

Finlayson responded in November of 2023 to a LinkedIn message from an overseas educator who he said was “calling for the eradication of Israel.” Though the author later deleted his post and all corresponding comments, the National Post quoted from Finlayson’s response in a December 2023 article.

“If you say ‘from the River to the Sea’, you’re a Nazi,” Finlayson wrote. “I’m not neutral. I stand with Israel. I stand against antisemites who want nothing but dead Jews: who take millions from their education and health care budgets and spend it on making war…You stand with Palestine means you stand with Hitler. You don’t want peace, you want dead Jews…They murdered 1,400 innocents and took 250 hostages and the people celebrated rapist monsters as heroes.”

Advertisement

RECORD ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS IN CANADA FUEL CRITICISM OF CARNEY GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Paul Finlayson says he lost his job after taking a strong stance online against the Hamas terror attacks on Israel. (Paul Finlayson )

Since the post, Finlayson says he has faced a targeted campaign against him which has affected his professional standing and job prospects. 

Finlayson said that students at the school found his LinkedIn reply before the post’s author erased the thread, leading to outcry. While meeting with a student in his office on Nov. 27, Finlayson said an administrator waited outside, eventually presenting him with a suspension letter.

A copy of the suspension letter, provided by Finlayson, cites “inappropriate online comments” and places the professor “on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.” It directed Finlayson not to contact “any of your departmental staff or students or broader members of the [university].”

Advertisement

Finlayson said he was “very well-liked” by students, who ranked him among the highest in the business department faculty. He said that rumors about the accusations against him destroyed his academic reputation, which included formulating courses and writing textbooks.

“My trial has been by defamation, and it continues by defamation,” Finlayson said of the “Kafkaesque” situation that ensued.

FEDERAL PROBE CLAIMS UNIVERSITIES ARE ‘LEGITIMIZING AND AMPLIFYING ANTISEMITISM’

Anti-Israel protesters hold antisemitic posters in Edmonton, Alberta, on April 13, 2025. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto)

He says that his union, OPSEU Local 562, refused to represent him. The union did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Advertisement

Finlayson was officially fired by the university in July 2025. He provided a copy of his termination letter, which stated that after a “formal complaint of discrimination and harassment,” an investigator found that his “conduct violated the Ontario Human Rights Code and Humber’s Human Rights and Harassment Policy, and that [he] engaged in reprisal under both of those instruments.”

The Humber harassment policy states that “anyone who attempts Reprisal or threatens Reprisal against a person who initiates a complaint or participates in proceedings under this Policy may be subject to disciplinary action.”

The same policy says that “Humber upholds and supports the right to equal treatment without Discrimination” based on prohibited grounds, which include antisemitism.

CANADA’S ANTISEMITISM ENVOY RESIGNS, CITING EXHAUSTION AMID HATE SURGE

Temple Emanu-El in Toronto was shot at on March 3, 2026. No injuries were reported. (Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Advertisement

The University of Guelph-Humber did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about Finlayson’s suspension, investigation and firing, and about whether anti-Israel posts shared by its students and a professor at the University violate the Humber Human Rights and Harassment Policy.

The University of Guelph’s “UofGforPalestine” Instagram page, which presents itself as the account of “students, staff, and faculty who stand in solidarity with Palestine,” has shared posts with the inverted red triangle that Hamas uses to mark targets. Like the U.S., Canada designates Hamas as a terror group.

In November 2024, the group shared photos on its Instagram account of a guillotine that “appeared on a walking path” in Guelph, which featured photos of the heads of Canadian, American and Israeli leaders coated in red paint. Though purported to be an “anonymous submission,” the post notes its “message” as “Death to empire, death to colonialism and imperialism, death to the war machine.”

The University of Guelph Humber in Ontario, Canada.  (Google Maps)

A University of Guelph-Humber professor whom Finlayson believes brought the case against him has posted inflammatory rhetoric on his own LinkedIn account, calling Israel a “terrorist state,” and stating that the world “cannot have both” peace and Israel.

Advertisement

The professor did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

While Finlayson lost his position, elsewhere in Canada, activism led to starkly different circumstances for three staffers at York University, who were among 11 individuals charged with “hate-motivated mischief” in Nov 2023 for plastering a bookstore with photos accusing a Jewish CEO of genocide, and splashing the store with red paint, as reported by the National Post.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Though they were initially suspended from the school, at least two staff members appear to have current profiles on the York University website. One, a professor, most recently taught courses at the school in the Winter 2026 semester. York University did not respond to requests for comment about its restoration of staff members’ roles.

Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, antisemitism has exploded in Canada. In April, B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights released a report showing that 6,800 antisemitic incidents took place in the country in 2025, representing a 9.4% increase over 2024. On average, this represented 18.6 incidents a day and was the “highest volume” the group has recorded since it began tracking incidents.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

World

Russia’s prison population falls by 180,000 since start of Ukraine war

Published

on

Russia’s prison population falls by 180,000 since start of Ukraine war

Published on

The number of prisoners in Russia has dropped by more than 180,000 over five years, in part driven by Moscow sending convicts to fight in Ukraine, Russia’s prison chief said on Thursday.

ADVERTISEMENT


ADVERTISEMENT

In four years of war, Russia has offered prisoners army contracts to fight in Ukraine and buy out their sentences, should they survive.

Advertisement

Russia, which has a massive prison network inherited from Soviet labour camps, has one of the world’s largest convict populations, though that number has been decreasing in the last 20 years.

“If at the end of 2021 there were 465,000 (prisoners), then now there are 282,000,” the head of Russia’s penitentiary service, Arkady Gostev, said, according to the TASS state news agency.

That represents a drop of nearly 40%.

Around 85,000 of the current prison population is held in pre-trial detention, he added.

Gostev said the decline was in part driven by the army’s recruitment drive, but also due to more suspended sentences and other forms of punishment handed out.

Advertisement

Prisoners returning from the Ukraine front have led to an increase in crime and social tension in Russia.

Gostev also said thousands of prisoners were working on production sites in support of the army, contributing to the country’s wartime economy.

Russian prisoners are often made to work, in a system inherited from the Soviet Gulag.

“Over the course of the year, we had additionally deployed 16,000 inmates for these (army) purposes, specifically for manufacturing,” TASS quoted Gostev as saying.

“We produce goods for the special military operation (worth) around 5.5 billion rubles (€64 million),” he said, using Moscow’s term for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Advertisement

“The volume of production (at prison sites) in 2025 amounted to 47 billion rubles (€548 million),” he said, without elaborating how much of it was for army needs.

Russia has experienced a shortage of workers during its offensive, with hundreds of thousands of men at the front and a similar amount fleeing the country due to mobilisation.

Additional sources • AFP

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending