Catherine Field: France Correspondent on Emmanuel Macron's snap election

French President Emmanuel Macron has called a snap election after his party suffered a heavy defeat in elections for the European Parliament. 

Exit polls put Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party well ahead of Macron’s pro-European centrists. 

France Correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking “The reason this came so out of nowhere – is that it’s not meant to be about local politics.” 

Field said “Macron’s felt he had no choice but to call these elections.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I told you the EU was going to be worth watching.
And so we've got the exit polls for France and
Marine la Penne has come in allegedly with thirty percent,
Macron's Renaissance Party fifteen, the Socialists fourteen, the Greens barely
scrape into the parliament at five point two percent, and
as a result of that, Macron has gone and called
a snap pole Catherine Field as well, it's Catherine, very

(00:22):
good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Has this come completely out of left field?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Completely completely? Emmanuel Macron just announcing fifteen twenty minutes ago
that he's taken note, as he said, of what the
voters said by turning out over the weekend to vote
so decisively for the policies of the far right Marine
la Penn's party, and therefore he says he's going to

(00:49):
go back to the people, that people will now have
their chance to vote for the National Assembly. The reason
this came so out of nowhere, a Mike, is because
when you vote for the European Parliament, that's really for
voting on a European level. It's everything to do with
Europe as a whole, your twenty eight nations. It's not

(01:11):
meant to be about local politics, but clearly the success
of Marine le Pen's party, her candidate Jordan Badella, has
really rocked him and he's felt that even though he's popular,
he's had a good last couple of days with the
D Day celebrations, he felt he had no option but
to call these elections.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Wow, he already runs a minority government. I mean, could
this blow up in his face.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Very easily, very easily. I was just listening to instant reaction.
I suppose you could call it on television. The French
Interior minister called it a courageous decision, so we all
know what that means when someone says that in politics
it could well. Now is machine Lea Penn's chance to

(01:56):
get out there?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Have this momentum going.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I mean everyone's saying, look, we don't need elections. They're
not scheduled for another three years. They've all got time
to calm down, get over this so called move to
the far right within the country. So she is really
on and up now. And I think the other thing, Mike,
is what I've been hearing this last sort of I
don't know eight nine months, you've been hearing more about

(02:22):
Marhine Le Penn. Well maybe she won't be so bad.
There's almost as though the electorate have almost taught themselves
into believing that maybe her and her followers won't be
so bad when it comes to governing.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Good on you, Catherine, appreciate the update just developing this morning.
Casperan Field out of France for this morning, I put
that down to Georgia Maloney. Maloney was allegedly the far right.
Allegedly she was a radical, crazy woman who was going
to do god knows what in Italy and she's turned
out to be a relatively moderate and successful politician. If
you're standing in France, sitting in France having a look
at that and think, well, maybe Marine Lapin's just another

(02:55):
version of Maloney. So there we go. Out of the
EU vote, comes the first snow That collection.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
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