France chooses pro-EU Macron as next president
He has huge win over far-right candidate
PARIS — The centrist Emmanuel Macron won a landslide victory over his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, on Sunday, beating back her nationalist, anti-immigrant campaign to become the youngest president-elect in France’s history.
Voters strongly rejected Le Pen’s populist rhetoric in an election that posed one of the starkest choices the French have faced in a generation. Exit polls published immediately after voting closed showed Macron with 65 percent to Le Pen’s 35 percent, and Le Pen quickly conceded defeat.
“I want to wish him the very best,” she said of Macron.
But as Le Pen expressed gratitude to her voters, she also defiantly called on them to continue to stand up against the French establishment. She said her National Front — with its anti-immigrant, anti-European Union stance —
was now the primary opposition party in France.
“I call on all patriots to take part in the decisive political battles that are beginning today,” she said. “Long live the Republic. Long live France.”
The vote means France will remain one of the driving forces of the EU.
The pro-EU, world-friendly Macron, 39, seeks closer ties and a deepening of relations across the European bloc. He encouraged French people not to be afraid of the expanding globalized economy and to look outward.
Le Pen had vowed to close France’s borders, dump the euro currency and organize a Brexit-style referendum to pull France out of the EU. Her inwardlooking program called for an end to immigration and for favoring French nationals for housing, health care, education and social benefits. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the far-right National Front in the 1970s.
Macron said he was grateful for the confidence the nation’s voters had shown him and that he had a message for Le Pen’s supporters: “I have heard your anger,” adding that he wanted to be president of “all French.”
“I understand the divisions in the country that have driven people to extremes, and I respect them,” he said in a speech at his Paris campaign headquarters that was broadcast to supporters gathered outside the Louvre Museum. “I understand the anger that many of you have expressed. It is my responsibility to hear you. I will fight with all my strength against the divisions that undermine us.”
After he spoke, the crowd sang the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise.”
Waving a flag outside the Louvre, Vince Andre, 29, a student, said he was delighted with the result.
“Macron is young, and hopefully he will do something for the young in this country. We’re fed up with the same old politicians, the same old promises.”
Ben Lounis, 39, a health service executive, said he was born in North Africa but has lived in France for 15 years. He was close to tears as he spoke of his hopes for the new president.
“My children are the product of multiculturalism, and I want to live in a France that is multicultural,” he said.
President Donald Trump tweeted his congratulations to Macron on the “big win” and said he looked forward to working with the president-elect.
Macron’s victory came despite low turnout, which was expected to benefit Le Pen, and a last-minute dump of hacked Macron campaign documents. It was not clear who was responsible for the hacking, but Le Pen supporters were reported to have quickly spread the documents, none of which was described as especially damaging.
Figures released at midday showed turnout at 28.23 percent, exactly the same as the first round of voting two weeks ago and down from 30.66 percent in the last presidential second-round vote in 2012.
Some polling stations in Paris were largely deserted through the early hours of voting. In part, this seemed to be because the second round of voting fell over a holiday weekend, and many voters were out of town.
Macron, a former investment banker with Rothschild’s, is economically liberal, socially progressive, pro-Europe and internationally minded.
His rise in French politics has been startling. When President Francois Hollande named him finance minister in 2014, French media headlined articles with: “Who is Emmanuel Macron?”
Macron, who ran as an independent, led a field of 11 candidates with 23.8 percent in the first round of voting April 23. He was followed by Le Pen with 21.6 percent.
On Friday, the last opinion poll by Ipsos showed Macron winning 63 percent of votes and Le Pen 37 percent. But that was before the hacked documents were released, making an already bitter campaign even more acrimonious.