Emmanuel Macron's temper tantrum has backfired spectacularly

Emmanuel Macron's decision to call a snap election has annihilated his own party and left the extreme-right on the brink of running the government for the first time since Vichy France and the Nazis

Emmanuel Macron’s furious reaction to his party coming a distant third in the European Parliament elections a few weeks ago was to call an extraordinarily rapid snap election for the French Parliament.

He somehow assumed that a rushed three week election campaign would be long enough for the French public to decide that they didn’t want the country to be ruled by the Le Pen family and their extreme-right cult, and turn back to his nauseating brand of capitalist "centrism", but the first round of voting proved how wrong he was.

These results are beyond dire for Macron.

Le Pen’s extreme right party came first with 33%; the broad left-wing coalition New Popular Front came second with 28%; and Macron’s party crawled home in third with 21%.

Ahead of the second round of voting, to settle the majority of seats, the far right have already won 38 outright, the left 32, and Macron’s party only 2.

Going into the next round, the left-wing parties have decided to withdraw their third placed candidates to give Macron’s party a straight shot at defeating the extreme-right, but the favour has not been reciprocated by scores of Macronites, who are intent on splitting the anti-fascist vote by refusing to stand down after finishing third.

To their credit some of Macron’s incumbents have given up their chances of winning back their seats, like Sabrina Roubache who explained her decision to withdraw by saying "defeats happen, but you can never recover from dishonour".

Elsewhere, another of Macron’s candidates Patrick Vignal dropped out after finishing third, despite Macron personally leaning on him to stay in the race and split the vote.

However, despite several of his candidates defying Macron’s egotistical demands that they stayed in races they can’t win, scores more are intent on spewing vitriolic anti-left bile and staying in where they finished third in order to ensure Le Pen’s extremists take the seat.

Macron’s party already look set to lose over 100 seats, and this hyper-partisan intransigence over not withdrawing third placed candidates in the face of Le Pen’s cabal standing on the brink of power is surely not going to go down well with the majority of French people who detest the extreme right.

It doesn’t take a great deal of emotional intelligence to realise that it’s unwise to make massively consequential decisions like gambling the entire future of your nation when you’re in a hot-headed rage, but Macron let his ego and entitlement get the better of him.

Even now, after two thumping electoral defeats in a row, Macron refuses to cut his losses and do what’s necessary to keep Le Pen’s extremist cabal out of government.

And if these horrific extreme-right ghouls manage to take control of the French Parliament by a few seats because Macron refused to stand all of his third placed candidates down, it’s unlikely the French public will ever forgive him for his hubristic gamble, or for his partisan intransigence in the face of real danger.

And if Macron’s popularity tanks even further, who is first in line to replace him as President of France in 2027?

Marine Le Pen.

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