ANKARA

Just days from the start of legislative elections, with France’s far right leading many polls, the nation’s centrist president on Tuesday got out the big guns, warning that far-right parties could lead France to a “civil war,” and immediately attracting bipartisan criticism.

“The far-right’s answers (to issues of insecurity) are out of the question, as it categorizes people in terms of their religion or (national) origin, and this is how it divides and pushes towards civil war,” Emmanuel Macron said Monday

Speaking to the podcast “Generation Do It Yourself,” Macron also criticized far-left parties for supporting “communitarianism,” which he also said could lead to civil war.

The comments immediately drew fire from across the political spectrum, with Jordan Bardella, head of the far-right party National Rally (RN), telling broadcaster M6: “A president of the republic should not say that.”

Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI) and former presidential candidate, said about Macron, “He’s always here to fuel it. The civil war for the moment, it is he who provoked it in New Caledonia,” referring to controversial voting reforms in the French Pacific territory.

Melenchon slammed Macron and French authorities for the arrest of indigenous Kanak representatives in New Caledonia after violent weeks of unrest in May.

After the National Rally got more than 30% of the votes in EU elections on June 9, Macron acknowledged the defeat of his centrist alliance, dissolved parliament, and announced snap elections, a move many observers called a risky gamble.

Left- and right-wing parties started talks to form alliances on their respective sides.

The left-wing parties announced an alliance under the name "New Popular Front," while the right wing faced a crisis over various formulas. Macron, for his part, called on the "centrist, progressist, democratic, and republican" bloc to unite and counter those alliances, either before or after the elections.

The legislative elections will be held in two rounds: the first on Sunday, June 30, and the second a week later, on July 7.