Where to Lay Your Bets on the French Elections? Italy
Market judgment on Macron’s election call is hardening. Italian debt is in better shape if the far right or hard left in Paris trigger a crisis.
Markets fear both Le Pen and Melenchon.
Photographer: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images
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There is now only one week to go until the first round of French legislative elections that seem very likely to leave voters with a straight choice between the far right and the hard left in the second round a week later. President Emmanuel Macron didn’t have to call this election, a decision made in response to an awful result for his party in voting for the European Parliament earlier this month. The instant market response suggested he’d made a horrible mistake. That view hasn’t changed at all. Meanwhile, the election held a few months ahead of schedule by Rishi Sunak across the English Channel has had little or no impact on markets.