Officially, the Vatican never intervenes in national elections, always leaving it to local bishops to speak. It is up to them, we think in Rome, to choose the fairest way to position themselves. However, the early legislative elections are being followed very closely at the Apostolic Palace, where Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly on June 9 caused astonishment.
What is worrying is not so much the results of the vote, “predictable”but the phase which will open just after their proclamation. “There is a risk that some will not accept the elections”worries a high Vatican source. Who anticipates a resumption of strong protest movements, “social conflicts” “like those France experienced with the yellow vests”.
A risk of polarization
The Vatican thus fears a polarization of French society, “as it exists in the United States”, but also “in other Western democracies”they comment in Rome.
Other sources within the Vatican express a form of incomprehension. “What is happening in France? »asks a cardinal of the Curia, who says he fears a shift in France to the extreme right.
The French political situation was also one of the themes of the meeting between Pope Francis and President Emmanuel Macron on June 14, during the G7 in Bari.
In recent months, the French president’s decision to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution has provoked strong criticism in the Vatican. “Relations between the president and the pope were inevitably affected,” they comment in Rome.
Find, as soon as they are officially published, the results of the first round of the 2024 legislative elections, municipality by municipality
