PARIS: The far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen finished top in European elections in France, final results showed Monday, dealing a symbolic blow, but not a knock-out punch, to pro-EU President Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) received 23.31 percent of the vote, with Macron’s centrist alliance trailing with 22.41 percent.
The two groups will have the same number of seats in the European Parliament, 23, after Britain’s expected departure from the EU.
Le Pen, who lost out to Macron in a bitter presidential contest in 2017, called for the head of state to dissolve the parliament and call new elections, a proposal that was immediately rejected by the government.
“It is up to the president of the republic to draw conclusions, he who put his presidential credit on the line in this vote in making it a referendum on his policies and even his personality,” Le Pen said in a brief speech late Sunday.
But despite triumphalist comments from RN figures, the final results were a mixed picture for the 50-year-old Le Pen: her party ended up losing ground since European elections in 2014 when it finished top with 24.9 percent.
In a first reaction after exit polls were released late on Sunday, an aide to Macron called them “respectable.” Leading allies of the 41-year-old president sounded satisfied that the margin of defeat looked like it would be slender.
A second-place finish for the ruling Republic on the Move (LREM) party was a disappointment for Macron after he put his reputation on the line by campaigning, but it is a symbolic setback that aides said would have no bearing on his policies.
“The catastrophe that some people predicted for Macron has not taken place and the RN has a significant score, but not a spectacular one when you compare it to five years ago,” analyst Zaki Laidi from the Cevipof political institute said.
An aide to Macron, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that there would be “no change of line” and that he would intensify his planned reforms which include tax cuts for the middle classes and controversial changes to the pension and unemployment benefits system.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the results confirmed the “redrawing” of French politics, which was evident in the presidential election in 2017 when France’s traditional parties were eclipsed by Macron’s new centrist movement and the far-right.
“The time is for action because the French people will judge us ultimately on one thing: results,” Philippe said in a televised statement on Sunday.
He also said the government had “received a message about the ecological emergency” after France’s main green party, EELV, looked set to finish third, with around 13 percent of the vote compared with 8.9 percent in 2014.
Macron had made no secret of the significance he attached to the results, telling regional French newspapers last week that the EU elections were the most important for four decades as the union faced an “existential threat.”
He is a leading champion of further EU integration and is keen for further advances to link the economies, militaries and political systems of the bloc, which numbers 28 member states including Britain.
At home, the former investment banker started his five-year term as an energetic pro-business reformer intent on cutting unemployment and making France more entrepreneurial.
But for six months he has faced so-called “yellow vest” protesters who have blocked roads and demonstrated to denounce him as a “president of the rich” who has ignored the plight of the working poor and rural France.
Macron has since announced major tax cuts for the middle classes and a rise in the minimum wage.
His influence and Le Pen’s in the European parliament will now depend on whether they can make alliances.
Le Pen has previously called for the formation of a “supergroup” of euroskeptic parties, but the hard-right ruling party in Poland — PiS — has shunned her because of her pro-Russian views, while Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban remains aloof.
“The gains for our allies in Europe and the emergence of new forces across the continent ... open the way for the formation of a powerful group in the European parliament,” the RN’s top campaigner, 23-year-old Jordan Bardella, told supporters on Sunday.
Macron meanwhile is in alliance with the ALDE centrist and liberal grouping which is seen as finishing third in the parliament behind the conservative PPE formation and the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
But the French president, who redrew French politics in 2017, is still hoping to forge a new broader alliance of pro-European which would bring together so-called “progressives.”
“At the European level, the president is still maneuvering to form a large progressive alliance, a force that will be essential in the new parliament,” an aide said on condition of anonymity.
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Blow for Macron as Le Pen tops EU election in France
Blow for Macron as Le Pen tops EU election in France
- Marine Le Pen’s National Rally received 23.31 percent of the European elections in France
- Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance trailed with 22.41 percent
North Korean POWs in Ukraine seeking ‘new life’ in South
SEOUL: Two North Korean prisoners of war held by Ukraine have said they hope to start a “new life” in South Korea, according to a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday.
Previous reports have indicated that the two men, held captive by Kyiv since January after sustaining injuries on the battlefield, were seeking to defect to the South.
But the letter represents the first time the two of them have said so in their own words.
“Thanks to the support of the South Korean people, new dreams and aspirations have begun to take root,” the two soldiers wrote in a letter dated late October to a Seoul-based rights group which shared it with AFP this week.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies.
At least 600 have died and thousands more have sustained injuries, according to South Korean estimates.
Analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology and food and energy supplies from Russia in return.
North Korean soldiers are instructed to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, according to South Korea’s intelligence service.
In the letter, the two prisoners thanked those working on their behalf “for encouraging us and seeing this situation not as a tragedy but as the beginning of a new life.”
“We firmly believe that we are never alone, and we think of those in South Korea as our own parents and siblings and have decided to go into their embrace,” they wrote.
The letter is signed by the two soldiers, whose names AFP has been asked to withhold to protect their safety.
- ‘Death sentence’ -
Under South Korea’s constitution, all Koreans — including those in the North — are considered citizens, and Seoul has said this applies to any troops captured in Ukraine.
The letter was delivered during an interview for a documentary film coordinated by the Gyeore-eol Nation United (GNU) rights group, which works to help North Korean defectors.
That interview took place at an undisclosed facility in Kyiv where the two POWs are being held after they were captured.
During the interview, the pair also pleaded to be sent to the South, according to GNU chief Jang Se-yul, himself a North Korean defector who fled the isolated country in the 2000s.
The video has not yet been made public but is expected to be released next month, Jang said.
Yu Yong-weon, a lawmaker who met with the prisoners during a visit to Ukraine in February, said the prisoners had described witnessing wounded comrades kill themselves with grenades.
Sending the soldiers back to the North would constitute “a death sentence,” Yu said.
South Korea’s foreign ministry has urged Ukraine not to “forcibly repatriate North Korean prisoners of war against their will” and has asked that their desire to go to the South be respected.
Previous reports have indicated that the two men, held captive by Kyiv since January after sustaining injuries on the battlefield, were seeking to defect to the South.
But the letter represents the first time the two of them have said so in their own words.
“Thanks to the support of the South Korean people, new dreams and aspirations have begun to take root,” the two soldiers wrote in a letter dated late October to a Seoul-based rights group which shared it with AFP this week.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies.
At least 600 have died and thousands more have sustained injuries, according to South Korean estimates.
Analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology and food and energy supplies from Russia in return.
North Korean soldiers are instructed to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, according to South Korea’s intelligence service.
In the letter, the two prisoners thanked those working on their behalf “for encouraging us and seeing this situation not as a tragedy but as the beginning of a new life.”
“We firmly believe that we are never alone, and we think of those in South Korea as our own parents and siblings and have decided to go into their embrace,” they wrote.
The letter is signed by the two soldiers, whose names AFP has been asked to withhold to protect their safety.
- ‘Death sentence’ -
Under South Korea’s constitution, all Koreans — including those in the North — are considered citizens, and Seoul has said this applies to any troops captured in Ukraine.
The letter was delivered during an interview for a documentary film coordinated by the Gyeore-eol Nation United (GNU) rights group, which works to help North Korean defectors.
That interview took place at an undisclosed facility in Kyiv where the two POWs are being held after they were captured.
During the interview, the pair also pleaded to be sent to the South, according to GNU chief Jang Se-yul, himself a North Korean defector who fled the isolated country in the 2000s.
The video has not yet been made public but is expected to be released next month, Jang said.
Yu Yong-weon, a lawmaker who met with the prisoners during a visit to Ukraine in February, said the prisoners had described witnessing wounded comrades kill themselves with grenades.
Sending the soldiers back to the North would constitute “a death sentence,” Yu said.
South Korea’s foreign ministry has urged Ukraine not to “forcibly repatriate North Korean prisoners of war against their will” and has asked that their desire to go to the South be respected.
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