"Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has announced that he is dissolving the national assembly, and calling for legislative elections on June 30 and July 7.
The French president said that he can’t pretend nothing has happened, that the outcome of the EU election is not good for his government and that the rise of nationalists is a danger for France and Europe."
This is somewhat analogous to the way midterm elections are treated in the US, and a decent comparison would be when Mitch McConnell blocked Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice towards the end of his second term.
The Democrats lost seats in Congress during that midterm season, which the Republicans used to claim that the American people had no faith in the Democrats and therefore no faith in Obama. They then used this claim as an excuse to block the Democrats ability to govern.
In this case, the people of France have voted for another party to represent their interests internationally to the EU parliament.
Macron will now face claims within the French government that the people voting against them in the EU elections indicates that they have no faith in his party’s leadership and that will make it difficult for him to govern.
With this move, calling an election early, they will have a clear indication of who the French people wish to lead them internally and, if they reelect Macron’s party, can dismiss the claims from opposition parties that the people don’t trust them.
It’s worth mentioning that many governments around the world don’t have fixed election cycles the way you do in the US. Instead many countries have an end date by which the election must occur, but a new election can be called at any time before that date if the government thinks it’s necessary. A similar thing is currently happening in the UK where the Conservative Party has called an election for early July, even though the election didn’t have to take place until late January 2025.