Macron ascendency over, says ex-French president

USSEL, France — The ascendancy of France's President Emmanuel Macron is over, the former president Francois Hollande said on Saturday, after his former protege called a snap election likely to hand huge gains to the far right.

"I have no scores to settle at all; that's all in the past," Hollande told Agence France-Presse on the campaign trail in his native Correze department, where he is standing to be a member of parliament.

With abysmal poll ratings in 2017, the Socialist Hollande did not himself stand for a second term in that year's election.