Jittery EU relieved, for now, after results

French presidential election runoff: Macron v Le Pen

brussels — Brussels heaved a sigh of relief on Monday after pro-EU Emmanuel Macron led far-right Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential vote, hoping for some respite after the Brexit shock and the rise of eurosceptics across the bloc.

Relieved Brussels officials broke with protocol on not intervening in national elections and swiftly congratulated Macron despite the fact he still has to beat Le Pen in a run-off.

“Last night, there was one choice between what Europe actually represents and a choice that represents the destruction of Europe,” said a spokesman for Jean-Claude Juncker, defending the European Commission chief ’s decision to call Macron to offer his congratulations.

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini also defended her unabashed congratulations for Macron, who spoke against a backdrop of the European Union’s blue-andgold starred flag on Sunday night.

“Putting together the two flags sends exactly the right message both to the French people and the European Union,” Mogherini said on a visit to Russia, which has been accused of meddling in the French election.

The French vote was being closely watched in Brussels as a bellwether following the election of Donald Trump as US President in November, and Britain’s shock vote to leave the EU in June.

“Brussels was worried. There is relief,” said EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, a former French socialist finance minister.

But despite the relief, there were still warnings that far-right leader Le Pen remained a contender, a prospect that European Union bigwigs warned was a step towards the tearing apart of the crisis-ridden bloc.

Moscovici was one of many voices to warn that it was too early to celebrate, saying it is “frightening that she still got 7.6 million votes.”

Polls show that Macron should beat Le Pen decisively, but analysts warned that the far right still reached historic levels in a sign that anti-Brussels populism was still alive and well in the EU.

Macron’s good showing came a month after the Netherlands also fought off a populist insurgency in an election that put the party of anti-Muslim MP Geert Wilders in a still strong second place.

The Wilders result “was still 500,000 voters more (than five years ago) when there is low unemployment and the (Dutch) economy is doing well,” said Catherine Fieschi, director of the Counterpoint political science consultancy. But other analysts said the Le Pen and Wilders results were disappointments for the far right and that populism may have reached its peak with the victory for Brexit in the UK last June.

Across the EU, there was support for Macron, whose campaign manifesto is profoundly pro-Brussels when all of the other ten candidates running in the first round opposed giving the EU more power. —