This is the best summary I could come up with:
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made big gains in the first round of a snap election that could upend political orthodoxy across Europe and beyond, with implications for markets and global security that will be hard to predict.
“We haven’t won yet, the second round will be crucial … we need an absolute majority so that Jordan Bardella, in eight days, can be appointed prime minister by Emmanuel Macron,” she added.
If the early estimates are confirmed in later results, Le Pen’s party, now led by the slick 28 year-old Jordan Bardella, stands a good chance of forming a ‘cohabitation’ government under Macron’s presidency.
“Faced with the [rise of the] National Rally, we need to foster a wide unity that is clearly democratic and republican ahead of the second round,” Macron said, according to a statement from the Elysée Palace.
The French president shocked the nation and France’s international allies when he triggered the vote only a couple of weeks before the Olympic Games, after a humiliating defeat in June’s European parliament election.
“I consider that no vote should be cast for the candidates of the National Rally, nor for those of [hard-left] France Unbowed,” said Philippe, who is Macron’s former prime minister and the head of center-right party Horizons.
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