In a remarkable result that defies modern precedent, Emmanuel Macron is re-elected president of France
re-elected president of France. In the second and final round of voting, the centrist incumbent secured an impressive 58.2% of the vote, soundly defeating the nationalist-populist Marine Le Pen, who scored 41.8%, according to initial estimates released by Ipsos, a polling group, as voting closed. Mr Macron is the first sitting French president to have been re-elected for 20 years.
It was also, at least partially, a victory for centrist, broadly liberal, pro-European politics over the forces of populism. Mr Macron framed the run-off vote as one for or against tolerance, freedom, respect and the European Union. For her part, Ms Le Pen called it a choice between the people and the cosy “globalist” elite of Paris.
But in the run-up to the second round, the polls shifted Mr Macron’s way. During their head-to-head debate, he laid into Ms Le Pen’s links to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, calling him her “banker” due to a still-outstanding loan her party took out with a Russian bank in 2014. He also exposed her inconsistencies over taxation, Europe, energy policy and more. The final vote confirmed the widening poll lead that he managed to open up in the closing days of the campaign.
The flipside of Mr Macron’s success in forging an exceptionally broad-based government, bringing in former Greens, Socialists, centrists and centre-right Republicans is that the loudest opposition is now found on the extremes. Mr Macron cannot be blamed for the mediocre presidential campaigns led by candidates from the formerly mainstream parties, which he has crushed at national level but which still run almost all towns and regions across France.
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