Macron to be re-elected: Projections
FRANCE
French President Emmanuel Macron has defeated his farright rival Marine Le Pen by a comfortable margin in a runoff election, early projections by pollsters showed, securing a second term.
The first projections showed centrist Macron securing around 57-58 percent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff. Such estimates are normally accurate but may be finetuned as official results come in from around the country.
Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right RN (National Assembly), received 41.8 percent of the votes, the highest in her last three unsuccessful presidential bids.
She conceded defeat in a speech shortly after the polling projections were released, but still hailed her result as a “brilliant victory”.
Promising to “carry on” her political career and saying that she would “never abandon” the French, the 53-year-old said: “The result represents a brilliant victory.”
Macron would be the first French president in a generation to win a second term, since Jacques Chirac in 2002.
But he would face a divided nation and a battle to keep his parliamentary majority in legislative elections in June. He is the third ever French president to win two consecutive terms.
Pierre Haski, a veteran political commentator, said the legislative elections – commonly referred to as the third round – will be the new test for the political landscape in France, especially as support for traditional parties has drastically shrunk.
“You have three political forces,” he told Al Jazeera. “You have Macron’s centre, a major chunk of the political spectrum. You have Marine Le Pen, who has increased the number of votes in this election compared to previous ones so she’s a strong contender on the right. Then you have [leftist] Jean-Luc Melenchon who did well in the first round and came in third and wants to take revenge in the parliamentary elections.
“The challenge for Macron is to have a majority because if he doesn’t, he will be forced into a different political orientation between the president and the prime minister, and that’s a source of tension and difficulties.”
According to the exit polls by Franceinfo, an estimate of 28.2 percent of the electorate did not cast their votes.