Emmanuel Macron held a “morose” crisis meeting to tackle the fierce opposition from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party ahead of the second round of French parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Macron’s Renaissance Party could face a crushing defeat later this week after already losing to the National Rally in the first round of the elections last Sunday.
The hard-right party won 33 percent of the votes, followed by the left-wing New Popular Front with 28 percent, and Macron’s party came in third with 20 percent.
By winning with more than 50 percent of the votes in their constituencies in the first round, National Rally candidates have already bagged 38 seats.
Macron’s party, which only secured two seats, is now scrambling to prevent the party from winning an absolute majority as the president calls on the left to create a “broad alliance” against the hard-right.
But the dejected president has been slammed for making “no effort to galvanise his troops” in the fight against Le Pen during a meeting with ministers on Monday.
According to a source, Macron said: “Let’s not be mistaken. It’s the far right that’s on its way to the highest office, no one else.”
The most likely outcome of the election is a hung parliament, according to analysts, would could create months of political chaos. So far, 76 of the 577-seat National Assembly have been elected.
National Rally President Jordan Bardella set out his ambition to secure an absolute majority and said he would “bring order to the streets”.
He said: “In order for me to carry out the project I have planned for the country, I need an absolute majority. I wish to debate project against project with an alliance I strongly believe, like millions of French people, represents an existential threat to the nation.
“We have people who want to release 20 percent of prisoners, disarm the police, create new taxes, who have unacceptably ambiguous positions on the threat of Islamists and secularism.”