French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she will not seek President Emmanuel Macron’s resignation if her party triumphs in the snap parliamentary election set to begin later this month.
“I’m respectful of institutions; I do not call for institutional chaos,” Le Pen told Le Figaro in an interview published Sunday. “There will simply be cohabitation.”
Macron called the high-risk national election after the far-right National Rally, led by Euroskeptic and NATO-skeptic firebrands, crushed Macron’s liberal Renaissance and all other contenders in the European election earlier this month.
In France, the National Rally’s performance in the snap election on June 30 and July 7 will be closely watched as a harbinger of whether Le Pen — long the also-ran of French politics — can ride her party’s momentum into the presidency in 2027.
“Nothing will prevent me from running in the presidential election,” Le Pen affirmed.
Thousands of people joined demonstrations in cities across France on Saturday to protest against the National Rally ahead of the election. The French Interior Ministry said 250,000 people turned out to protest, 75,000 of them in Paris.
Police said 21,000 officers were mobilized after labor unions, student groups and rights groups called for rallies to oppose the anti-immigration, eurosceptic party.