Macron warns voters against the far right and hard left ahead of crucial parliamentary elections

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron is warning voters against choosing the far right or the hard left, asserting that their divisive policies increase the risk of political “conflict and civil war,” ahead of Sunday’s first round of crucial parliamentary elections.

Macron said both the far-right National Rally and hard-left France Unbowed bring bad responses to “real problems” because they “respond in some way by increasing conflict and civil war.” He spoke in an interview with French podcast “Generation Do It Yourself,” released Monday.

Macron called snap elections following the defeat of his centrist alliance at European Union elections earlier this month. Voters will choose lawmakers for the National Assembly in two rounds on June 30 and July 7.

“When you are fed up with everything, when daily life is hard, you can be tempted by extremes that have quicker solutions. But the solution will never lie in rejecting others,” Macron said.

He asserted that the National Rally’s policies, detailed by the party’s president Jordan Bardella on Monday, would “lead to civil war” and are “an impoverishment program, because it’s several thousand euros in hidden taxes every day and an impossibility of paying pensions and paying employees well.”

The hard-left France Unbowed encourages tensions between communities for electoral purposes, he asserted, arguing it also means “civil war” because it “reduces people to their religious or ethnic group.”

Polls show that the outcome of the early election remains uncertain amid a complex voting system and potential alliances. Macron is aligned against both the National Rally and the New Popular Front, a coalition of far- to center-left parties that includes France Unbowed.