What is going on in France?

[Q2C4]

I'm trying to get my head around what's going on in France right now but I'm struggling to find a decent summary. Can someone more knowledgeable than me please point me in the right direction?
I've got as far as Macron called a snap parliamentary (not Presidental) election and the far right are doing well, which is worrying for many. shops are boarding up in preparation for riots. What has lead France to this position? What is likely to happen?

Follow Andrew Neil on Twitter and Times Radio - he lives in Provence part of the year so is very informative and links to other sources.

The Guardian has some good articles to explain what’s happening.

Also Sophie Pedder on twitter is a journalist based in Paris.

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www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/09/frances-snap-election-what-happened-why-and-whats-next

This is a fairly good, broad, overview

Macron called the snap election because of how well the right did in the EU elections. He won against Le Pen in the presidential elections not long ago and what has happened since then are the decisions about making more ammunitions in France and sending more to Ukraine and talk about soldiers in Ukraine, and it might be that that is tipping people in terms of voting. People who are more likely to vote for anti war parties might do so whether they are "left" or "right". All the other issues remain, but not much has changed since the presidential elections. There has been far more rioting, over issues such as pensions etc, in the last year. In relation to war, France seems to be more actively anti war than the UK, there have been more demonstrations against it. Not so much abandon Ukraine or any other country, more that military is not the answer.

In terms of process, they go to a second vote in a few days' time. There is talk of a coalition.

It is worth looking at a wide selection of press and in relation to French press you can translate by left clicking and selecting "translate to English".

I think that it is worth avoiding UK press on French issues, and read a wide variety of French press - it is very easy to use google translate to search for things in French and then to translate. On youtube you can use the translate button too.

Great, thank you all very much for the pointers. Still struggling to understand why Macron called a snap election in response to the far right doing well in the EU elections!! Will get reading.

One theory is that he wanted to demonstrate to the public that they would be disastrous, prior to the next Presidential elections.

I think the far right party got 33% in the recent election, which was the majority, although that still leaves 67% who might not vote for them in the next round I guess? Macron will still be president as this is for PM and national assembly.
Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic already have hard right governments.
Our first past the post system makes it harder for extremists to gain power I think.

It's seriously frightening and the UK should take note.

Macron basically came in and smashed the traditional centre left and centre right parties and said he could "save" the Republic with a Tony Blairesque "third way" and is judged to have failed.

The centre being destroyed has left a vacuum in to which the far right has come in and taken votes, and the most frightening thing about this is that they are not all older, right wing fanatics who are supporting Marie le Pen either! The newest faction of people voting for the right in France are young disenchanted voters with no job prospects, no future as they see it, and who are totally disenchanted with the status quo as it currently stands.

Politicians in the UK having completely asset-stripped the country, taken away everything that young people depend on to level up, such as free tertiary education, good public transport, good housing stock, opportunities to live and work abroad, and most importantly, any sense of trust in our public institutions, are now similarly ripe for recruitment from our own far right. Alienate the young voter at your peril!