When French voters delivered Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party an overwhelming victory in this month’s European Parliament elections, President Emmanuel Macron took a risky and unexpected gamble. He called a snap election, set to begin this Sunday, in which the French people would be given a choice: replicate the decision made in the European elections and hand the far right the keys to national governance, or help thwart them by backing his centrist Renaissance party, which since 2022 has served in a minority government, instead. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But Macron failed to anticipate that voters would have a third option.