French far right, Macron camp clash over Le Pen army warning

Tensions soared Thursday between supporters of Emmanuel Macron and the French far right after its longtime leader Marine Le Pen cast doubt on the president’s ability to act as head of the armed forces as snap legislative elections loom.

The far-right National Rally (RN) is tipped to win the election, potentially giving Le Pen’s party the post of prime minister for the first time in its history in a tense “cohabitation” with Macron.

Three days before the first round of the vote on June 30, Macron’s centrist alliance is battling to make up ground. But opinion polls suggest it will come third behind the RN and a  left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP).

The RN party chief, Jordan Bardella, 28, would have a chance to lead a government as prime minister.

But he has insisted he would do so only if his party wins an absolute majority of the 577 seats in the National Assembly after the second round of voting on July 7.

Friends and foes of Macron alike are still scratching their heads over why the president dissolved the lower house of parliament and called new elections in the aftermath of his party’s heavy defeat in this month’s EU Parliament vote.

Le Pen told the regional Telegramme daily that the president’s title as commander in chief of the armed forces was “honorific, because it’s the prime minister who holds the purse strings”.

Therefore, “on Ukraine, the president will not be able to send troops”, she added, undermining Macron’s warning to Moscow that France would keep all options on the table to thwart Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

– Le Pen’s ‘arrogance’ –

Francois Bayrou, a heavyweight former minister who heads a party allied to Macron, said Le Pen’s remarks were a “deep challenge to the constitution”.

Macron’s Europe Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told TF1 television: “What arrogance of Marine Le Pen to consider that the RN has already won the elections… What arrogance to want to systematically rewrite the constitution in advance.”

Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote on X: “The Constitution is not honorific.”

Attending a European summit in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was confident that whatever the composition of France’s next government, it would be pro-European and independent from Russian influence.

“We believe that the French will continue to support Ukraine regardless of the political situation,” Zelensky told AFP in written comments.

Macron has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his second term until it expires in 2027, no matter which party emerges on top in the coming legislative contest.

Le Pen, whom opponents have long accused of having too cosy a relationship with the Kremlin, scents that this could be her best-ever chance to win the Elysee Palace after three previous attempts.

– ‘Wasn’t going to turn around’ –

When he called the snap vote after a June 9 European Parliament election drubbing by the RN, Macron had hoped to present voters with a stark choice about whether to hand France to the far right.

An Ipsos poll published in Le Monde predicted the RN would win 36 percent of the vote, the NFP 29 percent and Macron’s alliance just 19.5 percent.

“It (the RN) can not only envisage a relative majority, but we cannot exclude, far from it, an absolute majority,” Brice Teinturier, deputy director of the polling firm Ipsos, told AFP.

Hoping to defy the odds, current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal — named months ago by Macron as France’s youngest-ever premier — will take on Bardella and Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure in a prime-time TV debate on Thursday.

It will be one of his last chances to convince voters before campaigning is officially suspended on Saturday and during the first-round voting Sunday.

Underscoring the stakes felt by many in France from ethnic minority backgrounds, French basketball superstar Victor Wembanyama said “for me it is important to take a distance from extremes, which are not the direction to take for a country like ours”.

Acclaimed black French filmmaker Alice Diop meanwhile told the Liberation newspaper that having the far right in government would be “not only a moral discomfort but a real fear”.

“For people like me, it is life or death,” she said.

In a rare comment on domestic politics in France by its neighbour, Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner said it would be a “tragedy” for France’s finances if the elections returned a government that increased the country’s large debt pile.

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