French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election later this month has awakened investors to his nation’s chronic financial problems, raising alarms that a new free-spending French government will only make matters worse.
Markets were rattled by Macron’s election gamble, which followed an unexpectedly strong showing by the far-right National Rally in June 9 balloting for the European Parliament. The CAC 40 stock market in Paris sank 6 percent within days and French government bonds sold off, as investors fled to the relative safety of German alternatives.
With Macron’s centrist coalition losing public support, the extremes of the far left and far right are poised to shape whatever new government emerges from the parliamentary voting that begins June 30. Both the leftist New Popular Front and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally support a long list of…
