Emmanuel Macron wants a snap election to get him out of a deep hole

An untenable position, then. As in America, French presidents cannot pass much of their domestic agenda without a majority in the legislature; Mr Macron has a prime minister, who runs the day-to-day business of the government, but in the normal course of things the government still needs to win votes to pass legislation. At the moment, Mr Macron’s party has no majority, but neither can anyone else form a majority government.