Mr Macron is gearing up to fight in the upcoming European elections to become the biggest French party in the European Parliament. But latest polls show French voters may turn once again these elections into a vote of protest and favour Mr Macron’s main opponent, Marine Le Pen, to slap down the president’s policies. A poll of 1,052 people, carried out by Harris Interactive/Epoka for Le Figaro between May 13 and 14, put RN on 22.5 percent of the vote, fractionally ahead of La Republic En Marche! (LREM), with 22 percent.
Similarly, a poll by Ifop-Fiducial taken between May 10 and 14 of 1,836 people put RN on 23 percent and LREM on 22.5 percent.
A victory in the European Parliament would allow Mr Macron to continue pushing for a more united European Union and strengthen his calls for radical reforms, such as a European Army and a common eurozone budget.
But if RN was to come out a winner from the elections, it would deal a further, massive blow to Mr Macron’s ambitions.
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Pascale Joannin, an international politics expert who heads the Robert Schuman Foundation, said: “In France he has broken the political parties, mainly the Socialist party, and weakened the traditional right.
“In the European family, maybe he expects to do the same, but it’s not possible because France is only one member state and there are 27 others.”
Ms Le Pen and the RN leader in Europe, 23-year-old Jordan Bardella, are portraying the upcoming elections as a domestic political fight, a chance for French voters to voice their anger against Mr Macron.
The RN, which has never held power at a national level, has already used this tactic in the 2014 European elections, where it became the strongest French party in the EU Parliament, winning 24 seats and almost 25 percent of the votes.
One 45-year-old civil servant taking part in a small Yellow Vest protest outside LREM’s Strasbourg rally, told the Financial Times: “I’m going to vote for a party that will block Macron.
“Unfortunately that means the Rassemblement National.”
The French President is already losing his closest ally in Europe, Angela Merkel, who is leaving her post as German Chancellor at the end of her term, in 2021.
Her most likely successor, CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has issued a “red light” to Mr Macron’s latest proposals, which included a a pan-EU minimum wage.
Elvire Fabry, a senior research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, said: “The red light came very quickly from Germany. Macron really relied on Merkel.”