French President Macron’s election gamble gives Europe Brexit nightmares again
- European Union officials fear financial chaos if Marine Le Pen’s far-right party wins and gets to implement its economic programme
President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election in France is giving European officials flashbacks to Brexit.
As soon as Macron announced his decision, two were immediately comparing him to former UK prime minister David Cameron, who called and lost a referendum on membership of the European Union in 2016.
Both men were confident, establishment figures under siege from the populist right who scheduled a risky and unnecessary vote, betting that it would settle their domestic problems. The French president’s side has even been echoing elements of Cameron’s rhetoric in the first week of the campaign.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire predicted a financial crisis if Marine Le Pen’s far-right party gets to implement its programme. Although he name-checked one of Cameron’s short-lived successors in warning of economic chaos, that strategy resembles what became know as Cameron’s own “Project Fear” during the Brexit campaign.
EU officials have spent much of the past decade dealing with the fallout from the UK vote. But a full-blown crisis in France could ultimately pose a more serious threat to the bloc, since it would strike at the heart of the euro area.
