THE former French president Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Sunday that President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call early parliamentary elections could backfire and plunge the country into chaos.

According to a report in the Journal du Dimanche, Sarkozy, the conservative former president who was in power from 2007 to 2012 and remains a major political figure, said the potential chaos caused by the dissolution of the assembly could be difficult to get out of it.

“Giving the French people the floor to justify the breakup is a strange argument because that’s exactly what over 25 million French people did at the polls,” Sarkozy, who is on friendly terms with Macron, said, referring to the European elections on 9 June.

“The danger is great, they confirm their anger instead of reversing it,” he said.

A poll on Saturday appeared to back up his concerns.

The poll OpinionWay-Vae Solis which was conducted for the Les Echos and Radio Classique it predicts that Marine Le Pen’s RN party will lead the first round of parliamentary elections with 33% of the vote, ahead of the Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing parties, with 25%. Macron’s centrist camp had 20%.

It is recalled that Macron called for early elections to be held in two rounds, on June 30 and July 7, after his centrist alliance was defeated by the far-right National Rally (RN) in the European Parliament vote last Sunday.

Yesterday, thousands of people demonstrated in Paris and other French cities to protest against the far-right National Rally (RN) ahead of the upcoming elections.