Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
France thins presidential field
Centrist Emmanuel Macron and farright populist Marine Le Pen advance to May 7 runoff election.
PARIS — Centrist Emmanuel Macron and farright populist Marine Le Pen advanced Sunday to a runoff in France’s presidential election, remaking the country’s political landscape and setting up a showdown over its participation in the European Union.
French politicians on the left and right immediately urged voters to block Le Pen’s path to power in the May 7 runoff, saying her virulently nationalist antiEU and anti-immigration politics would spell disaster for France.
“Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France,” defeated conservative candidate Francois 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 EU’s future and France’s place in it. It set up a battle between Macron’s vision of a tolerant France and a united Europe with open borders against Le Pen’s inward-looking “French-first” platform that called for closed borders, tougher security, less immigration and dropping the shared euro currency to return to the French franc.
With Le Pen wanting France to leave the EU and Macron wanting even closer cooperation between the bloc’s 28 nations, Sunday’s outcome meant the May 7 runoff will have undertones of a referendum on France’s EU membership.
The absence in the runoff of candidates from either the Socialists or the rightwing Republicans party — the two main political groups that have governed post-war France — also marked a shift in French politics. Macron, a 39-yearold investment banker, made the runoff on the back of a grass-roots campaign without the support of a major political party.
With 90 percent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Macron had nearly 24 percent, giving him a slight cushion over Le Pen’s 22 percent. Fillon, with just under 20 percent, was slightly ahead of the far-left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had 19 percent.
The euro jumped 2 percent to more than $1.09 after the initial results were announced because Macron has vowed to reinforce France’s commitments to the EU and euro.
Macron promised Sunday to be a president “who protects, who transforms and builds.”
“You are the faces of French hope,” he said to supporters.
Le Pen declared to supporters that she embodies “the great alternative.” 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, adding that nothing short of “the survival of France” will be at stake in the presidential runoff.
Her supporters burst into a rendition of the French national anthem, chanted “We will win!” and waved French flags and blue flags with “Marine President” on them.
France is steaming into unchartered 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 antifascist groups — scuffled with police. Officers fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Police detained three people as demonstrators burned cars, danced around bonfires and dodged riot police. At a peaceful protest by around 300 people at the Place de la Republique some sang “No Marine and No Macron!” and “Now burn your voting cards.”
Macron supporters at his Paris election-day headquarters went wild as polling agency projections showed the ex-finance minister making the runoff, cheering, singing “La Marseillaise,” waving French 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.”
Fillon said he would vote for Macron on May 7 because Le Pen’s program “would bankrupt France” and throw the EU into chaos.