Expatriates voice relief over centrist candidate’s victory

French expatriates in the Bay Area welcomed the election of Emmanuel Macron with relief and optimism Sunday, with many celebrating the victory as a win for European unity and a break from France’s mainstream political parties.

“I’m extremely excited,” said Clement Wolf, 31, a French citizen who has lived in San Francisco for two years and voted for Macron. “I’m very optimistic. He embodies change. He brings something new to French politics.”

Wolf, who works at Google, said he supports Macron’s economic platform, progressive social ideas and message of European unity.

Macron “is not just an advocate for Europe; he’s reminding people why it’s good to be European,” Wolf said.

Wolf ’s sentiments were echoed by many in the French expatriate community in the Bay Area, more than a dozen of whom gathered Sunday at Cafe Bastille in San Francisco’s Financial District, a popular meeting spot for French expats to watch the World Cup and other events.

Loïc Le Gland, who helped organize En Marche SF, the local arm of the political movement that supports Macron, said the biggest challenge was not persuading French voters here to support Macron, but rather getting them out to vote. He estimates that five years ago, just 30 percent of registered French voters in the Bay Area took part in the presidential election, but that rose to 55 percent this year.

“I didn’t really need to convince people (Marine) Le Pen was not a good candidate,” he said. “That was a given. In San Francisco, I had to make sure French people here vote.”

Many French expatriates in the region are in their 30s and 40s, Le Gland said, and did not feel represented by French politics. Many of his French friends voted for the first time in this election, he said. French expatriates cast ballots at 44 designated locations in the U.S.

“The European identity exists now,” said Le Gland, 40, who lives in San Francisco and works as an engineer at NeoPhotonics in Fremont.

Macron’s opponent, Le Pen, ran on an antiglobalization, anti-immigrant platform, which many French voters here reject.

Alice Henry, 32, a project manager at the nonprofit Samasource, said she was never engaged in politics before this election but was concerned about the wave of populism that elected Donald Trump in the United States and prompted voters in the United Kingdom to exit the European Union. She voted for Macron.

“I watched what happened to Trump and Brexit,” said Henry, who lives in San Francisco. “That’s something I wanted to stop within France.”