‘I owe them a debt’

… Macron pledges to tackle 'doubts and divisions' after election win

PARIS - Emmanuel Macron pledged to address deep divisions within France as results showed a clear presidential election win over Marine Le Pen, admitting that many had voted for him mainly to thwart his far-right challenger.

With all eyes turned toward a parliamentary election in June, he must now negotiate another tricky period of campaigning to try to ensure a legislature that will give him the majority he will need to implement his policies.

Final results of Sunday’s runoff showed Macron won 58.54 percent of the vote, a result line with late polling but a higher margin of victory than many earlier surveys had predicted.

The result also gives the far right its biggest share of the presidential ballot on record.

Macron said in a late-night victory speech:

“Many in this country voted for me not because they support my ideas but to keep out those of the far-right. I want to thank them and know I owe them a debt in the years to come. “We will have to be benevolent and respectful because our country is riddled with so many doubts, so many divisions.”

While Macron’s margin of victory was comfortable, it was well below the 66.1 percent he scored against the same opponent in their first runoff in 2017, and even further from the 82 percent secured by conservative Jacques Chirac in 2002 when the far-right first made it to the runoff round.

Hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon - who came a close third behind Le Pen in the first round - immediately labelled the June 12 and June 19 parliamentary elections a “third round” of the presidential election.

It is a ballot in which opposition parties of all stripes will be hoping to win.

The conservative daily Le Figaro wrote in its main editorial yesterday: “In truth, the marble statue is a giant with feet of clay. Emmanuel Macron knows this well ... he will not benefit from any grace period.”

The message across the Macron camp yesterday was that they would listen more, after a first mandate in which Macron himself initially called his leadership style “Jupiterian,” suggesting he would stay above the political fray.

“When a proposal that affects the lives of the French comes to the National Assembly, the deputies must go and discuss it with the French,” parliament leader Richard Ferrand, a close ally of Macron, told France Inter.