Emmanuel Macron has been warned his attempts to promote plans for further integration within the European Union will backfire due to growing dissent toward the EU project from eurosceptic parties. Latest predictions from Opinionway for French newspaper Les Echos have shown Mr Macron lose first place to far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the polls, with the President trailing the National Rally (24 percent) with 21 percent in the polls. Asked whether the May election could turn into a referendum on the French President’s leadership, former British MP George Galloway told RT UK: “Yes, I think so.
“There’s a crisis in confidence in the whole EU project. In Western countries, in highly developed economies like France and Italy, to a slightly lesser extent in Spain and Portugal.
“To a massive extent here in Britain and through less developed economies – former Soviet bloc economies like Poland and Hungary and others. There’s a crisis in the EU.”
Mr Galloway also suggested other French politicians could put up a fight against Mr Macron’s pro-European agenda at the polls.
He continued: “Melanchon, for example, leads a very big bloc of centre-left and left progressive people.
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“One way or another, Macron is finished as I’ve been saying for quite some weeks.”
The May vote, which will determine who is to lead the bloc’s key institutions, is being framed as a heated battle between hardline, anti-immigration populists and pro-Europe progressives.
The European parliamentary election will be the first popularity test for Mr Macron since anti-government protests rocked France late last year, derailing his reform plans and undermining his authority.
The yellow vest movement, so called because of the fluorescent safety jackets all French motorists must carry, began in mid-November over planned fuel tax hikes but quickly spiralled into a working-class rebellion against Mr Macron, whose perceived indifference and pro-business policies have earned him the unflattering nickname “president of the rich”.
And Brexiteers in the UK have warned Brussels to brace for chaos after Theresa May agreed to Britain taking part in the vote in exchange for a six-month extension until October 31.
Express.co.uk’s latest poll has shown Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party looks set to storm to victory in next month’s vote.
More than 20,000 people (89 percent) said they would back the former Ukip leader’s grassroots rebellion party if Britain heads to the polls in May.
This is compared to just 211 Express.co.uk readers (zero percent) who said they would vote for the Conservative Party in the forthcoming May elections.
The poll results come as it emerged disillusioned voters have sided with Nigel Farage, and the Brexit Party is currently odds on favourites to win the majority of the seats in the UK.
Marine Le Pen claimed the eurosceptic group in the EU Parliament will be “much more advanced than Emmanuel Macron’s” attempt to create his own liberal bloc thanks to the close collaboration between her Rassemblement Nationale and Mr Salvini’s Lega.
The right-wing leader pledged to form a “very large sovereignist group in the EU Parliament” and revealed Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party is also in her vision for the eurosceptic bloc.