Making a live TV appearance on Sunday evening shortly after the provisional results were announced, Macron announced that he had dissolved the Assemblée Nationale and had called fresh parliamentary elections.

The first round of voting will be on Sunday June 30th, and the second on Sunday July 7th.

The outcome of the EU elections, he acknowledged, is “not a good result for parties who defend Europe.”

Macron noted that, including the top scoring Rassemblement National (RN), far-right parties in France managed to take almost 40 percent of the vote in the EU elections in France.

Explained: What do snap parliamentary elections mean for France?

“Far right parties… are progressing everywhere in the continent. It is a situation to which I cannot resign myself,” he said.

“I decided to give you the choice… Therefore I will dissolve the National Assembly tonight.

“This decision is serious and heavy but it is an act of confidence. Confidence in you, dear compatriots, and in the capacity of the French people to make the best choice for itself and future generations.”

Macron has been faced with a parliamentary deadlock since 2022, when his party failed to win an absolute majority.

The parliamentary elections do not directly affect Macron’s own position – he has a presidential mandate until 2027 – but will discern the overall makeup of the parliament and which party or parties has a majority.

The full results of the European election, released early on Monday morning, show that Rassemblement National has taken a commanding lead at 31.7 percent of the vote. Macron’s centrist group was second on 14.56 percent, followed by the centre-left Parti Socialiste candidate Raphaël Glucksmann. Following them were the hard-left La France Insoumise on 9.87 percent, the right-wing Les Républicains on 7.24 percent, the Greens on 5.47 percent and the extreme right Reconquête on 5.46 percent.

Although the French president has the power under the country’s constitution to call fresh parliamentary elections, this has not happened since 1997 and usually elections are held on a five-year cycle.

If a different party to the president’s wins an outright majority in parliament, what usually happens is a ‘cohabitation’, in which the president appoints as prime minister the leader of the party with the majority – in the case of RN winning an outright parliamentary majority this would likely mean that either Marine Le Pen or her deputy Jordan Bardella would become prime minister.

However, the 2022 parliamentary elections left the far-right party a long way short of an absolute majority.

Presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac were both forced to spend part of their presidential terms in a cohabitation with a rival PM.

A presidential advisor, who asked not to be named, said that Macron’s camp was going into the elections “to win”.

“Risk-taking” is part of the “DNA” of Macron’s camp, the adviser added.

With reporting by AFP