The foreign policy establishment in both Europe and Washington fears that large-scale joint initiatives like ramped-up military spending and the new push to fund Ukraine's defense for years to come could also be in question, given Macron had long become among Kiev's top cheerleaders.

He had even recently unveiled a controversial plan to send French and NATO military trainers to Ukraine. "Paris has been working for a while now with the Ukrainians on this," a person familiar with France's initiative had told The Financial Times. But given the plan wasn't launched formally by NATO leadership, Macron is seen as the prime mover on the European continent behind all of this.

But France's surprise political leader as of this past weekend, Marine Le Pen – who blew president Macron away in the European Parliament elections – is reaching out to mainstream voters as she aims to cement a majority in the next parliament, a result that would constitute an earthquake in European politics.

Her group, the National Rally, is already on track to become the biggest party in the lower house, a prospect which has caused alarm among investors, the national security establishment, France's international partners, and a section of the French public. Two rounds of parliamentary elections will conclude on July 7.

Macron in a Tuesday address admitted he was hurt by his party's defeat in the European Parliament elections, and said the country would have been in "chaos" without his call for snap legislative elections: 

'Without a dissolution, there would have been chaos,' Macron was quoted as saying on Tuesday by Agence France-Presse. 'The decision I took was the most difficult, the most serious, but the most responsible.'

With the National Rally expected to make sizeable parliamentary gains, what is its stance on Russia-Ukraine policy? And what's Jordan Bardella vision of the issue, who could become French PM at the young age of 28?