The snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron after Sunday's bruising loss to the far-right in European Parliament elections will be France's most fateful legislative vote in decades, its finance minister said on Monday.
Macron's shock decision amounts to a roll of the dice on his political future and that of France. It immediately sent the euro down, also hitting French stocks and government bonds.
The June 30 and July 7 ballot could, for the first time, hand a great deal of power to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), if they can transform their rising popularity into a win at home too - where the vote would also be about trust that it could run a major European government.
If the eurosceptic, anti-immigration RN did score a majority, Macron would remain president for three more years and continue to be in charge of defence and foreign policy.
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