The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has scored another victory by winning re-elections on Sunday, convincingly beating his rival Marine Le Pen & started a wave of relief in Europe that the far-right had been kept out of power.
Centrist Macron was set to score around 58 per cent of the vote in the second-round run-off as compared with Le Pen on 42 per cent, according to projections by polling firms for French reports based on a sample of the vote count.
Macron is the first French President to score victory in a second term for two decades, but Le Pen’s results also note the closest the closest far-right has ever come to taking power in France & has disclosed a deeply divided nation.
The 44-year-old President faces many challenges in his 2nd term, beginning with parliamentary elections in June, where keeping a majority will be critical to ensure he can realise his ambitions to reform France.
The outcome was expected to be confirmed by official results overnight, with the final figures due on Monday.
During a victory speech on the Champ de Mars in central Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, Macron vowed to respond to voters’ anger who backed his far-right rival, saying his new term would not continue unchanged from the last five years.
He said, “An answer must be found to the anger and disagreement that led many of our competitors to vote for the extreme right. It will be my responsibility & those around me.”
He also pledged a “renewed method” to govern France, adding that this “new era” would not be done of “continuity with the last term which is now ending.”
In a combative speech to supporters in Paris in which she accepted the result but showed no sign of quitting politics, Le Pen, 53, said she would “never abandon” the French and was already preparing for the June legislative elections.
She said, “The result represents a brilliant victory.”
Le Pen said, “We launch the great battle for the legislative elections this evening.”
