Emmanuel Macron is categorical when he says he will not resign after the legislative elections. But he was also firm in ensuring that a victory for the RN in the European elections would not lead to dissolution…
“It’s absurd”. Emmanuel Macron was clear about a possible resignation during the press conference he gave on Wednesday June 12, three days after the announcement of the dissolution and four days before the launch of the legislative election campaign. The President of the Republic is firm on this point: he refuses to give up his apron before the end of his second term. Moreover, when the press mentions his hypothetical resignation to him, he firmly retorts that we must “twist the neck of this duck that never existed”.
Emmanuel Macron does not seem to understand his voluntary departure from the Elysée even though he was elected twice to the presidency, as he recalled at a press conference. It must be said that resigning would be a final admission of failure, especially if the departure comes after two consecutive defeats at the polls. Because that is the subject: after the defeat of the presidential majority in the European elections, can the presidential camp experience a new defeat in the legislative elections? In which case what will happen to the tenant of the Elysée?
“The institutions are clear, the president’s place is too”
Questions are being asked about the future of Emmanuel Macron at the head of France, while the results of the legislative elections raise fears for the worst within the presidential majority. But the head of state intends to stay in place whatever happens after the second round of legislative elections on July 7. “The institutions are clear, the place of the president, whatever the result, is also clear”, underlined Emmanuel Macron in the columns of Figaro Magazine. Implied: whether the presidential camp wins or not and even if the National Rally or another political force becomes a majority in the Assembly, it will not resign.
As for a possible resignation request made by an opposition force which would become the majority in the hemicycle, in particular the RN, the Head of State responds: “It is not the RN which writes the Constitution, nor the spirit of it.”
A previous turnaround that makes everything possible
If Emmanuel Macron firmly assures that he will not abandon the Elysée before the presidential election of 2027, surprises remain possible. The announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly was also proof of the Head of State’s ability to take radical decisions without warning, even though he had assured the opposite a few days earlier. During the European election campaign, facing the RN, already given the winner in the poll results, demanded a dissolution in the event of victory, Emmanuel Macron responded in an interview for La Tribune Sunday And Provence that “the election of European deputies” would call for a “first and foremost European conclusion”. The Head of State had thus brushed aside any possible consequences on national institutions.
However, and to everyone’s surprise, it was the future of French political institutions that the President of the Republic shook up on the evening of the European elections. The outcome of the vote, which should not, according to him, influence national policy, led to the dissolution of the National Assembly, by decision ofEmmanuel Macron. A precedent which makes a resignation of Emmanuel Macron still possible until the legislative elections and even beyond.