France’s Marine Le Pen urges fresh polls next year

Marine Le Pen calls for fresh elections in France after political deadlock, Macron appoints conservative Prime Minister.

The parliamentary leader of France’s far-right National Rally (or Rassemblement National, RN) party on Saturday (September 15, 2024) called for fresh elections next year, just months after snap polls threw the country into political deadlock.

“It’s untenable,” three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told fellow RN members.

“The great country that is France cannot function this way,” said the leader of the largest single party in parliament after elections this summer produced a hung legislature.

President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament in June after the RN trounced his centrist alliance in European elections.

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The move has plunged the country into a political impasse, but under French law he cannot enact another dissolution for at least a year from the vote.

“There are 10 months left and I am convinced that at the end of those 10 months there will be new parliamentary elections,” Ms. Le Pen said.