Macron, Le Pen to face off
Centrist candidate projected to have edge heading into French presidency second-round vote
CENTRIST Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine le Pen are set to face each other in a May 7 runoff for the French presidency after coming first and second in yesterday’s first round of voting, early projections indicated.
In a race that was too close to call up to the last minute, Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker and economy minister who founded his own party only a year ago, was projected to get 24% by the pollster Harris and 23.7% by Elabe.
Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU National Front, was given 22% by both institutes. Three further pollsters all projected similar results.
Macron and Le Pen cast their ballots early yesterday.
A throng of well-wishers and journalists were on hand as Macron, 39, and his 64-year-old wife Brigitte, arrived to vote in the chic northern seaside resort of Le Touquet, at the town hall where they were married 10 years ago.
Le Pen, 48, went to the polls in Henin-Beaumont, a former coal mining town in northern France whose mayor is a member of her National Front party.
Though Macron is a comparative political novice who has never held elected office, opinion polls in the run-up to the ballot had consistently seen him winning the final clash against Le Pen easily.
Defeated Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon urged voters to rally behind Macron in the second round, as did senior conservative MP Francois Baroin from the camp of defeated right-wing candidate Francois Fillon.
Harris gave both Fillon and far-left contender Jean-Luc Melenchon 20%, which will mean their elimination from the presidential race. The result, if confirmed, will mean a face-off between politicians with radically contrasting economic visions for a country whose economy lags that of its neighbours and where a quarter of young people are unemployed.
That in turn reduces the prospect of an anti-establishment shock on the scale of Britain’s Brexit vote in June and Donald Trump’s election as US president.
Early indications showed the euro currency jumping to a four-week high of around $1.09 in response to the early projections, from $1.0726.
Macron favours gradual deregulation measures that will be welcomed by global financial markets, while Le Pen wants to ditch the euro currency and possibly pull out of the EU.
Whatever the outcome on May 7, it will mean a redrawing of France’s political landscape, which has been dominated for 60 years by mainstream groupings from the centre-left and centre-right, both of whose candidates faded.
The final outcome on May 7 will influence France’s standing as a nucleararmed, veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and founding member of the organisation that transformed itself into the European Union.