Macron: Snap vote 'most responsible' answer

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday defended his decision to hold snap legislative elections where a predicted far-right victory could hobble his remaining term, calling it the "most responsible" solution.

His far-right rival and potential future prime minister Jordan Bardella urged voters to give his alliance a clear majority and said he would "refuse" to become head of government without one.

Macron's bloc is trailing the far right and a new left-wing alliance in the polls and faces an uphill struggle to narrow the gap less than two weeks before the first round.

He stunned the country by calling an election on June 30 and July 7 after the far-right National Rally, or RN, trounced his centrist alliance in European Union elections earlier this month.

Macron lost his absolute parliamentary majority in 2022 and his second term, which runs to 2027, risks being hampered with the opposition controlling the government and parliament.

But he hit back on Tuesday, saying dissolving the National Assembly was "the heaviest, the most serious, but the most responsible" solution after the EU election debacle.

"Without the dissolution, it would have been chaos," he said during a visit to the western Brittany region, adding that a "silent majority" of voters were against the "disorder" of political extremes.

The gamble has triggered a major realignment of French politics, with new alliances including hard-liners forming on the left and right, and bewildered some of his allies.

Far right leading polls

According to an IFOP poll for the LCI television channel, the RN would take 33 percent of the vote on June 30, the New Popular Front left-wing alliance 28 percent and Macron's ruling centrists 18 percent.

However, such an outcome would mean the RN would be unlikely to win the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.

RN leader Bardella, who at 28 could be France's youngest head of government, told broadcasters CNews and Europe 1 that he needed an absolute majority to govern unhampered.

"I don't want to be the president's assistant," he said.

Speaking to France 2 television later on Tuesday, Bardella added that he would "refuse to be appointed" prime minister if he had no absolute majority.

Eyes are also already turning to presidential polls in 2027 where Macron must stand down and RN figurehead Marine Le Pen scents her best chance for power.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, 35, the youngest person to lead the country's government, urged voters to choose his party's candidates from the first round as the only "credible" alternative to keep the far right and hard left out of power.

He said the far right and hard left had programs that would lead France "straight to bankruptcy" if they won.

But in an interview with Le Monde newspaper, Gilles Le Gendre, former head of Macron's ruling party faction in parliament, said calling snap polls was an "insane decision that makes no sense".

Macron "took the unnecessary and dangerous risk that the latent political crisis that has been damaging our country for years will become a full-blown crisis", he said.

Agencies Via Xinhua