France’s conservative leader calls for pact with far right

The leader of France’s centre-right party has called for an electoral alliance with the far-right Rassemblement National ahead of snap legislative elections on June 30 that have rattled financial markets.

A pact would boost the chances of RN securing an absolute majority in the election called by President Emmanuel Macron in a shock move on Sunday.

Éric Ciotti, leader of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR), said his party needed to strike “an alliance with the RN, its candidates, with all those who identify with ideas of the right, with the values of the right”.

“I want my political family to move in this direction,” Ciotti added, calling for a force to oppose the “impotence of Macronism” and the threat from the far left.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, said Ciotti had made a “courageous choice” and hailed his “sense of responsibility”.

The move is a blow to Macron’s hopes of forming a united front with the forces of the centre-left and centre-right to take on RN.

Leftwing parties have already thrashed out a preliminary pact to run a single list of candidates — including the Socialists, the Communists, the Greens and the far-left France Unbowed party, but not the president’s centrist alliance.