One senior centrist figure said they had not slept properly since the announcement of a campaign that is the shortest in modern French history at barely three weeks.
Macron's opponents on the left have meanwhile deemed it utter folly to call a sudden French parliament election at a time when the far-right National Rally (RN) is at its highest level of support in history. "It's Russian roulette," said several politicians.
Le Pen's renamed National Rally - which as the Front National founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was for decades regarded as a danger to democracy that promoted racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views-topped the European elections with a record 31.4%. This was double the score of Macron's centrists, who are at their lowest ebb. Le Pen's support is also increasingly solid - her party came top in over 90% of the communes of France in the European poll.
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