Emmanuel Macron has vowed he will not be leaving office, “whatever the result” of the French parliamentary elections in June and July.
The French president called the snap vote following National Rally's decisive European election triumph on June 9. The election will see French voters elect new members of the country's National Assembly.
Whichever party wins a majority will be able to appoint the French prime minister and effectively run the country.
As president, Mr Macron's job is insulated from the vote, but if his Renaissance party does poorly he may see his power dwindle dramatically ahead of the presidential election in 2027.
Alluding to the possibility of Le Pen's National Rally doing well in the parliamentary vote, he told Le Figaro magazine: “It's not the National Rally that writes the Constitution nor the spirit of it. The institutions are clear, and so is the place of the president, whatever the result.”
Denying rumors that he had been mulling his resignation following National Rally's incredible performance in the EU elections, Mr Macron sought to pour cold water on the polls, which has Le Pen's party clear on 28 points, saying: “Politics is dynamic. I've never believed in polls.
“The decision I have taken opens a new era. A new campaign begins, and we should look at the scores for each constituency in the light of those for the European elections.”
Meanwhile, France's center-right and hard-right parties have been lining up to propose a pact between them and National Rally.
Le Pen's niece, Marion Maréchal, of the much smaller hard-right party Reconquête! has made a 'unite the right' plea.
However, perhaps more significantly, the president of the center-right Les Republicains, Eric Ciotti, has also expressed his desire to join forces with the National Rally.
Eric Ciotti told TF1 television: “We need to have an alliance (…) an alliance with the National Rally and its candidates.”
After Ciotti added that he wanted his “political family to move in this direction”, Le Pen heralded his intervention as “courageous”.