Legislative. “Fear”, “discredit”, “humiliation”: the vote seen by the foreign press

“French democracy speaks and it scares,” asserts the Swiss daily “Le Temps” this Monday in its editorial. Before unfolding: “The first round of the legislative elections in France ends under the frightened gaze of its European neighbors”. The daily evokes a “staggering stampede”, and considers that “despite the polishing, the RN is indeed a far-right party”, which “draws its roots from founders with negationist, segregationist, neofascist and racist ideology. And traces of it remain. »

“A president who has just shattered his country”

In Belgium, it is the President of the Republic who is directly targeted: “ Discredit now has the face of Emmanuel Macron, a president who, far from protecting his country for good against the extreme right, has legitimized it by deliberately abandoning the ballot boxes to it. […] A president who has just smashed his country,” writes “Le Soir.”

“La Libre Belgique” headlines a “dizzying fall into the unknown”: “This Sunday will undoubtedly go down in history as a prelude to the triumph of the French extreme right: after having exploded the political scene in 2017, Emmanuel Macron dynamited what was left of it. […] “As a result, the far right won over 12 million voters. Unprecedented,” the site laments.

>> The first round of French legislative elections on the front page of the international press:

The “New York Times” is not to be outdone and points out this Sunday the “serious setback” of Emmanuel Macron in the face of the “significant score of the RN”: He “lost contact with the people to whom the RN was addressing “. And to announce for the president “three difficult years”: “We will remember him as the president who allowed the extreme right to access the highest offices of the State” writes the New York daily.

The Washington Post observes a “referendum against Macron”, who has become “an extremely unpopular leader”.

“The Economist”, for its part, describes through the pen of Sophie Pedder a “political earthquake” with the “massive advance” of the RN and its allies, despite the “good evening” of the New Popular Front. She anticipates for France “a period of profound uncertainty and political instability”.

From De Gaulle to Vichy

In Italy, Corriere della Sera notes that “the anti-Le Pen cordon sanitaire has given way: for decades, it had kept the RN out of power and the system.” But on Sunday, the vote “marks, on the right, the passage from the heirs of De Gaulle to those of Vichy and French Algeria.”