French President Emmanuel Macron defends decision to call elections– www.washingtonpost.com

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Excerpt from www.washingtonpost.com

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron defended his decision to call snap legislative elections after a humiliating defeat Sunday in balloting for the European Parliament, saying he hears people’s anger — and thinks they will support his political bloc anyway.

“I want there to be a government that can respond to their anger, to their urgent needs,” he said in a news conference Wednesday.

But it’s not at all clear that the next French Parliament will favor Macron and his allies. In opinion polls, his camp is lagging behind the National Rally, a far-right party guided by Marine Le Pen and her protégé, Jordan Bardella, which won about 31.4 percent of the vote in the European elections, more than double the showing for Macron’s allies.

The French president dissolved the National Assembly — the lower house of Parliament — and called elections within hours of Sunday’s defeat, apparently stunning even some of his close allies. The first round of voting is now set for June 30 and a second round for July 7, just before NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington and the start of the Paris Olympics.

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