After the first round of European Parliament elections, the French far-right (represented by the National Rally) had a great showing. President Macron wasn’t too happy with that outcome, so he called snap elections to give his party a second shot at capturing a majority.

There are a few reasons that Macron knew this might yield more favorable results. There is a known shift in voting patterns between first and second round votes, where voters start more emotional and end more practical. There are lots of voting tactics Macron’s party could use to garner some more votes, like removing multiple candidates to prop up a single one. The most important one here was the timing; the other parties didn’t have enough time to pull together strong candidates, so Macron’s party could use that to their advantage. And Macron was right…mostly.

The National Rally took third in the snap elections, Macron’s party took second, and the Left came in first. The French aren’t out of the woods quite yet though. Since none of the factions had a majority to form a government, we’re going to see some French cooperation, and you can expect how that will go.

The threat of political instability within France could prove to be a big problem for the rest of Europe too. Without France (attempting to be) at the helm, and no other countries fit to step into that role, Europe will need to figure something out ASAP.