Le Pen, Macron advance in French election
DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED LE PEN, MACRON ADVANCE TO RUN-OFF IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen advanced Sunday to a run-off in France’s presidential election, remaking the country’s political landscape and setting up a showdown over the very future of Europe.
Politicians on the left and right immediately urged voters to block Le Pen’s path to power in the May 7 run-off, saying her virulently nationalist anti-EU and anti-immigration politics would spell disaster for France.
“Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France,” defeated conservative candidate François Fillon said. “As such, there is no other choice than to vote against the extreme right.”
The selection of Le Pen and Macron presented voters with the starkest possible choice between two diametrically opposed visions of the European Union’s future and France’s place in it.
It set up a battle between Macron’s optimistic vision of a tolerant France and a united Europe with open borders against Le Pen’s darker, inward-looking platform that called for closed borders, tougher security, less immigration and dropping the shared euro currency to return to the franc.
With Le Pen wanting France to leave the EU and Macron wanting even closer co-operation between the bloc’s 28 nations, Sunday’s outcome meant the May 7 run-off will have undertones of a referendum on France’s EU membership. Macron, 39, would take 62 per cent of that vote, compared with 38 per cent for Le Pen, according to a snap Ipsos poll Sunday for France Television.
The absence in the run-off of candidates from either the mainstream left Socialists or the rightwing Republicans party — the two main political groups that have governed France for six decades — also marked a seismic shift in French politics. Macron, a 39-year-old investment banker, made the run-off on the back of a grassroots campaign without the support of a major political party.
With 76 per cent of the votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Macron had 23.3 per cent of the vote and Le Pen 22.7 per cent.
Fillon had just under 20 per cent support and the farleft’s Jean-Luc Melenchon had just under 19 per cent.
The euro jumped two per cent after the initial results were announced because Macron has vowed to reinforce France’s commitments to the EU and euro.
With a wink at his cheering, flag-waving supporters who yelled “We will win!” in his election day headquarters in Paris, Macron promised to be a president “who protects, who transforms and builds” if elected.
Le Pen, in a speech to cheering supporters, declared that she embodies “the great alternative” for French voters. She portrayed her duel with Macron as a battle between “patriots” and “wild deregulation” — warning of job losses overseas, mass migration straining resources at home and “the free circulation of terrorists.”
“The time has come to free the French people,” she said at her election day headquarters in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, adding that nothing short of “the survival of France” will be at stake in the presidential run-off.
Her supporters burst into a rendition of the national anthem, chanted “We will win!” and waved French flags and blue flags with “Marine President” on them.
France is now steaming into uncharted territory, because whoever wins on May 7 cannot count on the backing of France’s political mainstream parties. Even under a constitution that concentrates power in the president’s hands, both Macron and Le Pen will need legislators in parliament to pass laws and implement much of their programs.
France’s legislative election in June now takes on a vital importance, with huge questions about whether Le Pen and even the more moderate Macron will be able to rally sufficient lawmakers to their causes.
In Paris, protesters angry at Le Pen’s advance — some from anarchist and anti-fascist groups — scuffled with police. Officers fired tear gas to disperse the rowdy crowd.
Macron supporters at his Paris election day HQ went wild as polling agency projections showed the exfinance minister making the run-off, cheering, singing “La Marseillaise” anthem, waving French tricolour and European flags and shouting “Macron, president!”
Mathilde Jullien, 23, said she is convinced Macron will beat Le Pen.
“He represents France’s future, a future within Europe,” she said. “He will win because he is able to unite people from the right and the left against the threat of the National Front and he proposes real solutions for France’s economy.”
THE TIME HAS COME TO FREE THE FRENCH PEOPLE.