“You can trust me to act until May 2027 as your president, protector at every moment of our republic, our values, respectful of pluralism and your choices, at your service and that of the nation,” he added.
Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s figurehead, said on Saturday that Macron’s resignation could be the only solution to avoid a lame-duck presidency for the remaining three years of his term.
Her comments came as two new opinion polls released showed the RN with 35-36 per cent of voting intentions as the first round looms on June 30. They lead a left-wing alliance at 27-29.5 per cent, with Macron’s centrists in third at 19.5-22 per cent.
That would put the far-right within reach of an absolute majority of at least 289 seats – and open a combative period of “cohabitation” government in which the president and prime minister hail from rival parties.
Macron acknowledged that his decision to call the snap polls had generated for some voters “anger that has turned against me”.
He also noted “this fracture between the people and those who lead the country, which we have not succeeded in reducing.
“The goal cannot be to just continue as things were. I have heard that you want change,” he added, noting in particular his administration’s “much stronger and firmer responses” on “insecurity and impunity”.
03:58
Emmanuel Macron thanks Xi Jinping for ‘commitment’ not to sell arms to Russia
Emmanuel Macron thanks Xi Jinping for ‘commitment’ not to sell arms to Russia
But Macron insisted that the coming vote, with a second round on July 7, was “neither a presidential election, nor a vote of confidence in the president of the republic”.
Instead it was a chance to answer “a single question: who should govern France?”
“The incoming government, which will necessarily reflect your vote, will I hope resemble the various republicans who will have shown the courage to oppose the extremes”, he said.
In the EU Parliament election earlier this month the far-right finished first in France at 31.5 per cent of the vote, double the 15 per cent for Macron’s centrist Renaissance.
Opinion polls suggest the RN is set to achieve its best-ever score in the legislative vote, potentially giving it a shot at naming a prime minister, most likely its telegenic young party chief Jordan Bardella.
Gabriel Attal, Macron’s prime minister, said on Sunday that he had “heard the message” sent by the EU Parliament vote, telling RTL radio that “in our methods, in our governance, we have to do better”.
Meanwhile, thousands of people turned out in France on Sunday for feminist demonstrations against the far-right.
With the far-right National Rally (RN) polling at around 35 per cent, “we have to remind people that they’re the ones who talked about ‘comfort abortions’, who are always attacking family planning services,” said Morgane Legras, a nuclear engineer and feminist activist taking part in the thousands-strong march in Paris.
Protesters wearing violet marched from the Place de la Republique square in central Paris to Place de la Nation in the east, bearing signs with messages such as “Push back the far-right, not our rights”.
Other rallies took place in around 50 other cities such as Toulouse.
Since Macron dissolved parliament after a European Parliament election battering, his centrists are badly lagging the RN as well as a reforged left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) in surveys of voting intentions.
The RN has received unprecedented levels of support after a decades-long “de-demonisation” push to distance its image from its roots, including a co-founder who was a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS paramilitary.
But the core of its message remains hostility to immigration, Islam and the European Union.
Senior RN lawmaker Sebastien Chenu gestured towards Muslim and Jewish voters Sunday by vowing not to ban the ritual slaughter of livestock to produce halal or kosher meat.
“Everyone will be able to keep eating kosher meat if they want,” Chenu told Jewish broadcaster Radio J.
He added that a historic far-right policy of barring the kippa in public spaces – in the footsteps of an existing law forbidding the full-body burka worn by some Muslim women – was not top of the RN’s agenda, saying its priority was to fight “the Islamist threat”.
In Macron’s camp, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal acknowledged that the European Parliament result – where they scored just 14 per cent – was “a message to us that we have to do better with our methods, with our governance” of the country.
If his party defies the odds to come top in the legislative polls, he vowed “change”, including a turn to “seeking out coalitions with the French public, with civil society” in an interview with broadcaster RTL.
Macron’s alliance would open up to “all who want to come, from the conservative right to the social-democratic left”, Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe told broadcaster France 3.
Attal also hammered the centrists’ mantra about the threats from “extremes” on the left and right, saying both promised a “tax bludgeoning … a shredder for the middle classes”.
The RN especially is “not ready to govern … it’s a party of opposition, not a party of government”, Attal said.
In a sign of the disquiet abroad over Macron’s snap poll gamble, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that he was “concerned about the elections in France”, though “it’s up to the French people to decide”.