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In last week's elections for the European Parliament, the voters of France delivered a major rebuff

to the party of the President, Emmanuel Macron, with twice as many voting for the nationalist re-sommlement Nacional, national rally,

of his rival, Marine Le Pen.

Immediately the vote was announced, Macron shocked everyone by calling a snap parliamentary election.

The first round of voting will happen before the end of the month.

The result could be deeply consequential

for the EU, for Ukraine and for us here in Britain. So why did Macron call this election?

And what happens if he loses and France gets a Le Pen government? Step inside the briefing room

and together we'll find out.

First, what just happened to who and what's going to happen next?

Joining me in the briefing room are Hugh Schofield, the BBC's Paris correspondent,

and Sophie Peder, Paris bureau chief at The Economist.

Hugh Schofield, can you run us through what happened in France's European election results?

Who got what?

Well, it was quite straightforward and very much in line with predictions of the polls.

Basically, the national rally, that's Jordan Baddella and Marina Pends Party, the hard right,

got 31.5%. So a massive turnout for it,

nearly a third of voters, and well ahead of the next list, which was President Macron's list under a woman called Very Ayer, which got around 15%, so not even half of what the hard right got. And indeed,

another hard right party, the one that sort of, in a way, is a kind of split off of the national

rally, a more ideological one called reconquests, reconquette, which got just over 5%, so enough to

return, you know, a handful of MEPs. And it meant that, you know, if you added the 331.5 to the five or so for the Rokonket party, you have a hard right vote there of, you know, 37, 38%. And that's what, of course, just took everyone totally by surprise.

...