PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said that he was confident French voters would make the “right choice” in snap elections he called after the far right crushed his centrist alliance in Sunday’s EU ballot.
His surprise move came after mainstream centrist parties kept an overall majority in the European Parliament in Sunday’s elections, but the far right notched up a string of high-profile victories in Italy, Austria and France.
In Germany, where the three governing coalition parties also performed dismally, center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman ruled out a snap vote.
Analysts say Macron has taken the risky gamble of dissolving the national parliament in a bid to keep the far-right National Rally (RN) out of power when his second term ends in 2027.
“I am confident in the capacity of the French people to make the right choice for themselves and for future generations,” Macron wrote on X on Monday.
His announcement of elections for a new National Assembly on June 30, with a second round on July 7, has sparked widespread alarm, even from within the ranks of his party.
“By playing with fire, the head of state could end up by burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire,” Le Monde wrote in an editorial.
Despite the storm of criticism, Macron appeared unfazed on Monday as he visited the southwestern French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, site of a massacre by Nazi soldiers during World War II, together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Steinmeier said: “Let us never forget the damage done in Europe by nationalism and hate.”
Back in Paris, even some Macron allies expressed dissent over his latest announcement.
Lower-house speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a senior figure within Macron’s party, indicated that forming a coalition with other parties could have been a better “path.”
“The president believed that this path did not exist,” she told television channel France 2.
Meanwhile, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, described the prospect of elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as “extremely unsettling.”
But International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach played down any direct impact on the event.
Uncertainty around the election also sapped market confidence, with Paris’s CAC 40 index closing 1.35 percent lower and the interest rate on French government debt gaining 10 basis points, to 3.22 percent.
In a televised address late on Sunday, Macron warned of the danger of “the rise of nationalists and demagogues” for France and its place in Europe.
He noted that, including the RN, far-right parties in France had managed to take almost 40 percent of the EU Parliament vote.
Macron is hoping to win back the majority he lost in France’s lower house in 2022 legislative elections after winning a second term.
But some fear the anti-immigration RN could instead win, forcing Macron to work in an uncomfortable coalition with a far-right prime minister.
RN vice president Sebastien Chenu said the party’s 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella would be its contender for the post.
Bardella’s mentor Marine Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections, has remained party leader in parliament and is largely expected to tilt for the top job again in 2027.
The far right came out on top in France, Italy and Austria, and second in Germany and the Netherlands.
The Kremlin, which hopes the far right would take a softer line on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, said it was “attentively observing” the gains.
The RN came in first with more than 31 percent of votes in France — its score was more than double that of Macron’s list with 14 percent.
The Socialists and hard-left France Unbowed trailed behind with 13 and nine percent each.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned that the election results would have “consequences of unprecedented seriousness for our nation.”
The team of Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, who is also secretary-general of Macron’s Renaissance party, told RTL radio he would be “fully engaged” in the battle for parliament seats as well as his job as minister.
Socialist party chief Olivier Faure called for setting up “a popular front against the far right.”
On the far right, Marion Marechal, deputy head of the Reconquest party founded by pundit Eric Zemmour and seen as even further to the right of the RN, was meeting Marine Le Pen — who is her aunt — and Bardella at the RN headquarters.
Bardella said he had also “stretched out his hand” to the mainstream conservative Republicans party and had spoken with senior members.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, said Macron appeared to believe he could defy the polls by confronting France with a choice between the pro-European status quo and a far right that has “a history of admiration for — and funding by — Vladimir Putin.”
Macron urges French to make ‘right choice’ in election gamble
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Macron urges French to make ‘right choice’ in election gamble
- Le Monde: ‘By playing with fire, the head of state could end up by burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire’
- Macron appeared unfazed as he visited the southwestern French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, site of a massacre by Nazi soldiers during World War II, together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
What to know about the search for the Brown University shooting suspect
- The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus
PROVIDENCE, R.I.: With the Brown University shooter still on the loose Tuesday, authorities released new video of a suspect and police fanned out to Providence schools to reassure parents, kids and teachers as investigators pushed for new evidence that might help them crack the case.
Here’s a look at what to know about the attack and the search:
Search on after new video and description of suspect
Authorities released a video timeline and a slightly clearer image of the man suspected in Saturday’s attack in an engineering building classroom, where two students were killed and nine were wounded. The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus.
In videos previously made public, the suspect’s face was masked or turned away and authorities were only able to give a vague description of him as having a stocky build and about 5 feet, 8 inches (173 centimeters) tall.
The gunman fired more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
Police have asked the public for tips, and said they had received about 200 by Tuesday. Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, asked the public Tuesday to look at their camera systems in the area where the person was walking to review any footage that goes back a week.
Authorities on Sunday released a different person of interest after determining he wasn’t behind the attack, which happened in a first-floor classroom where students were cramming for an exam. Providence police spokeswoman Kristy dosReis said the man’s detention didn’t affect the ongoing investigation.
Police fan out to local schools
Tensions remain high in Providence. Ten state troopers were assigned to support the local police sent to beef up security at schools, district Superintendent Javier Montañez said. The district said it canceled after-school activities, sporting events and field trips this week “out of an abundance of caution.”
The attack and the shooter’s escape also have raised questions about campus security, including a lack of security cameras, and led to calls for better locks on campus doors. But some said what they called the real issue needs to be addressed.
“The issue isn’t the doors, it’s the guns,” said Zoe Kass, a senior who fled the engineering building Saturday.
Authorities have said that one reason they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown’s older engineering building doesn’t have many cameras.
University defends response
Brown President Christina Paxson defended the university’s response, saying it was deeply committed to the safety, security and well-being of its students. She also said the campus is equipped with 1,200 cameras.
“I have been deeply saddened by people questioning that,” she said Tuesday. “As time goes on, there is a natural instinct to assign responsibility for tragic events like this. Anxiety here is very natural, but the shooter is responsible.”
Paxson said the university has two security systems. One system is activated at a time of emergency and sent out text messages, phone calls and emails that, in this shooting, reached 20,000 individuals. The other system features three sirens across campus, but Paxson said that would not be activated in an active shooter situation.
“Those get activated when there is a broad scale emergency, and we want people to rush into buildings,” she said. “In the case of an active shooter, activating that system could have caused people to rush into Barus and Holley.”
When pressed by a reporter who noted the university website says the sirens can be used when there is an active shooter, Paxson reaffirmed she didn’t think it would be used in that situation.
“It depends on the circumstances and where the active shooter would be but you don’t want to ever get people rushing into buildings that might be the site of an active shooter,” she said.
Details about the victims emerge
Two of the wounded students had been released from the hospital as of Tuesday, Brown spokeswoman Amanda McGregor said. Of the seven others, one remained in critical condition, five were in critical but stable condition and one was in stable condition, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
One of the wounded, 18-year-old freshman Spencer Yang of New York City, told the New York Times and the Brown Daily Herald there was a scramble after the gunman entered the room. Yang said he wound up on the ground and was shot in the leg.
The students who died were MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Brandermill, Virginia, and Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.
Jacob Spears, 18, a freshman from Evans, Georgia, was shot in the stomach, “but through sheer adrenaline and courage, he managed to run outside, where he was aided by others,” according to a GoFundMe site organized for him.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was wounded.
