French President Macron urges moderate politicians to regroup to defeat the far right in elections

French President Macron calls for moderate politicians to unite against far-right in upcoming legislative elections amid political turmoil.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged on Wednesday moderate politicians from the left and the right to regroup to defeat the far right in the upcoming national legislative elections he had called for after his party's crushing defeat in the European parliamentary vote.

A somber-looking Mr. Macron addressed French voters for the first time since his stunning decision on Sunday to dissolve the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament.

His move triggered an early legislative election that will take place in two rounds on June 30 and July 7, three weeks after the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen triumphed at the election for the European Union Parliament.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Mr. Macron said he decided on the risky move because he could not ignore the new political reality after his pro-European party was handed a chastening defeat and garnered less than half the support of the National Rally with its star leader, Jordan Bardella.

Unlike in his recent national addresses in which Mr. Macron focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine and ways Europe should forge a common defence policy, independent of the U.S., and shore up trade protections against China, the French President stuck to his country’s internal issues favored by the surging right, including curbing immigration, fighting crime and Islamic separatism in France.

Mr. Macron, who has three years left of his second presidential term, hopes voters will band together to contain the far right in national elections in a way they did not in European ones. He called on “men and women of goodwill who were able to say ‘no’ to extremes to join together to be able to build a joint project” for the country.

“Things are simple today: we have unnatural alliances at both extremes, who quite agree on nothing except the jobs to be shared, and who will not be able to implement any program," Mr. Macron said during an opening address at a press conference in Paris.