Economic Toll Fueled Macrons Setback --- French election loss points to higher stakes for EU leaders as sanctions upon Russia bog down

"PARIS -- The loss of French President Emmanuel Macron's parliamentary majority is an early sign of how Russia's squeeze on European energy prices is raising the economic and political stakes for European leaders as the sanctions on Russia remain.

Mr. Macron's party lost dozens of seats in the National Assembly to candidates backed by far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon and far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Both politicians seized on record inflation to portray Mr. Macron as a leader who paid more attention to his role on the diplomatic stage, dealing with the sanctions on Russia, than to voters struggling to make ends meet.

Voters across the continent are now starting to feel the economic toll of the sanctions. Europeans were reeling from inflation fueled by supply-chain woes and other factors when the sanctions compounded the pain in Europe. EU countries prepared to wean themselves off Russian fuel.

Then Russia began throttling the flow of natural gas to Europe last week, sending energy prices even higher and raising the specter that the continent won't have ample supplies of gas to heat homes and power factories through the winter.

Moscow tightened the gas spigot just days before the final round of France's parliamentary election and right as Mr. Macron took a high-profile trip to Kyiv alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. All three leaders backed Ukraine's candidacy to join the European Union after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and vowed to support the sanctions.

France's hung parliament isn't expected to tie Mr. Macron's hands on foreign policy. His party and its allies still have the most seats in the National Assembly.

Still, the result requires Mr. Macron to spend more time and energy cobbling together votes to advance his pro-business domestic agenda, including his plans to raise the age of retirement.

Marie-Claude Dautricourt, 76 years old, was worried about the impact the rising cost of living is having on young families. The retiree no longer goes out to eat at restaurants because it is too pricey. On Sunday, she cast her vote for a candidate in Mr. Melenchon's coalition. "Melenchon cares more about the everyday lives of people than Macron," she said.

The timing of French elections meant Mr. Macron has borne the brunt of any political fallout from the sanctions among Western leaders. Prolonged sanctions, however, risk deepening the economic and political costs beyond France.

In the U.K, tens of thousands of transport workers are set to begin a series of strikes on Tuesday in protest of wage freezes at a time when British inflation has reached a 40-year high. Approval ratings for Prime Minister Boris Johnson have tanked amid a cost-of-living crisis and anger over his attendance at several parties in Downing Street during Covid-19 lockdowns.

In Germany, Mr. Scholz won't face re-election for years, but a key regional race is slated for October, when pocketbook issues could loom large.

Opinion polls show support for Mr. Scholz's government has weakened since the start of the sanctions while economic anxieties are on the rise. This month, worries about rising prices and rents, as well as falling incomes, topped respondents' list of concerns, displacing the Ukraine for the first time since March, according to a June 17 Politbarometer poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for public broadcaster ZDF.

The same poll showed 85% of respondents expected prices to keep rising and 60% expected the economy to worsen in the coming months, though a majority said they hadn't seen a deterioration yet.

There is no sign yet that German voters' concerns about the economy are translating into weakening support for Ukraine. On the contrary, Mr. Scholz -- who has faced criticism from Kyiv for what it and many allies see as Berlin's insufficient support of Ukraine -- has seen his approval ratings fall, whereas those of the more hawkish Green party leaders in the government have risen.

Italy is due to hold elections early next year, with a right-wing alliance long expected to win." [1]

1. World News: Economic Toll Fueled Macrons Setback --- French election loss points to higher stakes for EU leaders as sanctions upon Russia bog down
Meichtry, Stacy. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 21 June 2022: A.6.