The leader of France’s main right-wing party on Tuesday backed an alliance with the far right of Marine Le Pen in snap legislative elections, triggering a crisis within his own party and fury from the government.
The stunning announcement by the Republicans (LR) leader Eric Ciotti in a TV interview is the first time in modern French political history that a leader of a traditional party has backed an alliance with the far-right National Rally (RN).
President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called the elections on June 30, with a second round on July 7, a major gamble after the RN scored more than double the number of votes of his centrist alliance in the EU elections.
With less than three weeks to go before the first round, Macron faces opposition alliances crystallising on the left and right and warnings that his bet could backfire.
A Harris Interactive-Toluna poll published on Monday suggested just 19% of people would back him, compared to 34% for the far-right National Rally.
But in an interview, Macron ruled out resigning after the election.
The forthcoming ballot has set alarm bells ringing across Europe, as it risks hobbling France — historically a key player in brokering compromise in Brussels and support for Ukraine against Russian invasion.
“We need to have an alliance while remaining ourselves... an alliance with the RN and its candidates,” Ciotti told TF1 television, adding that he had already held discussions with Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate, and RN party leader Jordan Bardella.
Le Pen praised “the courageous choice” and “sense of responsibility” of Ciotti, saying she hoped a significant number of LR figures would follow him. Bardella confirmed the alliance, telling France 2 television that his party would be supporting “dozens” of LR candidates for seats.
Eric Zemmour, the former pundit who leads the Reconquest party seen as even more to the right of the RN, applauded the move and called for a “vast alliance of right-wing forces”.
The LR traces its history back to postwar leader Charles de Gaulle and is the political home of ex-presidents such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Now “40 years of a pseudo sanitary cordon — which caused many elections to be lost — is disappearing,” Le Pen, now head of RN deputies in the lower house National Assembly, told AFP.
But Ciotti’s move, which he said was aimed at creating a “significant” group in the new National Assembly after the elections, risks tearing apart his own party.
“I see all those currently agitating for coalitions, for alliances, for little combinations. I’ll say right away: I don’t believe in it,” said Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of the central Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region seen as a presidential prospect for 2027.
The LR speaker of the upper house Senate, Gerard Larcher, a heavyweight figure, said he would “never swallow” an agreement with the RN and called on Ciotti to resign. But speaking to reporters after the interview, Ciotti said he would not resign and emphasised that his mandate depended on party activists.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, a past defector from the LR to Macron’s alliance, denounced the move as a “dishonour to the Gaullist family” and compared it to the Munich accords with Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. Macron’s office delayed until today a major press conference initially slated for on Tuesday afternoon, in an apparent bid to take stock of the realignment of political forces.