But now, many French Jews feel betrayed by Macron, who last week announced snap parliamentary elections that backfired and boosted the far right. And then following his party’s trouncing in the first stage of the elections on Sunday, he proceeded to implicitly endorse a party with a far-left antisemitism problem to counteract the nationalists’ ascent.
Macron, who will remain president regardless of the parliamentary electoral results, “just endorsed a party controlled by pro-Hamas” forces, Yohann Taieb, a French-Jewish journalist, wrote on X on Monday. The Jewish groups that endorsed him were “being taken for a ride,” Taieb added.
This sentiment, shared by many French Jews, stems from a series of unusual choices by Macron throughout one of the most tumultuous political episodes in France’s recent history.
It began with the European Parliament elections of June 9, in which the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella won the largest share of the vote (32%). In a move that stunned the nation, Macron declared an early election to the French parliament to curb the far right’s ascent by uniting its rivals behind his centrist Renaissance party.
This tactic is failing spectacularly in the local parliamentary elections, whose first round was held Sunday and whose second and final one is scheduled for July 7. Not only did the far right secure a whopping 34% in Sunday’s snap elections, but Macron’s party also lost its claim to be the main alternative to the far right. READ MORE