Macron's call for new elections 'caught the room by surprise'
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00:00There were gasps in the room when Emmanuel Macron announced that he was dissolving Parliament
00:07and that fresh elections would take place on the 30th of June for the first round, the 7th of July for the second round.
00:13That's just around the corner.
00:15I've been speaking to people in the room here telling me that they're now going to have to go out and start campaigning
00:20and they don't have all that much time to do it.
00:23And no, people I've been speaking to were not expecting this.
00:26They did tell me that when they heard, we all heard a little earlier on in the evening,
00:30that Emmanuel Macron would be speaking tonight, they were expecting something.
00:34Because first of all, to give you some context, it's very rare for a French president to speak on the night,
00:39on the evening of European elections.
00:41So the fact that he was going to speak, people started saying, well, maybe he's going to say something.
00:45But dissolving Parliament, that really caught the room by surprise here.