Paris mayor says French elections could 'spoil' Olympics

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo on Wednesday said that President Emmanuel Macron had risked "spoiling" the Olympics party in the French capital next month by calling snap parliamentary elections.

French people are set to go to the polls on Sunday for the first of two rounds of voting ahead of the start of the Paris Olympics on July 26.

Polls show the far-right National Rally in the lead, which could see them emerge as the biggest parliamentary group and possibly at the head of the government for the first time.

"In an act of mistreatment of French people, the president is spoiling the party," Hidalgo told the Ouest France newspaper of Macron's decision to dissolve parliament on June 9.

The Olympics are "a coming-together of humanity through sport. Why undermine this beautiful moment with this election that was called in a hurry, without consulting anyone?" the Socialist mayor added.

Analysts and security sources have raised the risk of protests and even violence if the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) secures power on July 7 in what would be a seismic change for France.

Macron has called the election a moment of "clarification" and has warned about voting for the "extremes", both the RN and the new left-wing alliance that includes moderate Socialists and far-left Communists.

Polls show his centrist bloc trailing in third and facing major losses.

"My responsibility... is to do everything" so that the Games are "a moment of harmony, of celebration and not of violence," added Hidalgo, who ran against Macron in the last presidential election in 2022.

She said that if the RN's candidate to be prime minister, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, succeeded in taking power, then she would not appear in any photos with him during the Games.