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Europe
Macron Decisively Defeats Le Pen in French Presidential Race
PARIS
— Emmanuel Macron, a youthful former investment banker, handily won
France’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating the staunch
nationalist Marine Le Pen after voters firmly rejected her far-right
message and backed his call for centrist change, according to partial
returns.
Mr.
Macron, 39, who has never held elected office, will become the youngest
president in the 59-year history of France’s Fifth Republic after
leading an improbable campaign that swept aside France’s establishment political parties.
The
election was watched around the world for magnifying many of the
broader tensions rippling through Western democracies, including the
United States: populist anger at the political mainstream, economic
insecurity among middle-class voters and rising resentment toward
immigrants.
Mr.
Macron’s victory offered significant relief to the European Union,
which Ms. Le Pen threatened to leave. His platform to loosen labor
rules, make France more competitive globally and deepen ties with the
European Union was also likely to reassure a global financial market
jittery at the prospect of a Le Pen victory.
Her
loss provided further signs that the populist wave that swept Britain
out of the European Union and Donald J. Trump into the White House may
have crested in Europe, for now.
“It
is a great honor and a great responsibility,” Mr. Macron said, using a
video link to address thousands of flag-waving supporters who gathered
on the plaza of the Louvre, where he held his victory celebration. “A
new page is opening.”
With
50 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Macron had 62 percent of the vote,
compared with 38 percent for Ms. Le Pen, according to the official count
from the Interior Ministry.
The
outcome was nonetheless a watershed for Ms. Le Pen’s party, the
far-right National Front, giving it new legitimacy even as the results
showed that the party remains anathema to much of the French electorate
for its history of anti-Semitism, racism and Nazi nostalgia.
Interactive Graphic
How France Voted
Detailed maps of the French presidential election show
how Emmanuel Macron decisively beat right-wing nationalist Marine Le
Pen.
The
runoff election was groundbreaking for being a choice between two
political outsiders, as well as for its rancor and an apparent attempt
to sway the vote with the large-scale hacking of Macron campaign emails, similar to the attack directed at last year’s election in the United States.
But
although Mr. Macron won by a wide margin, the share of votes that went
to Ms. Le Pen and the high abstention rate — the worst turnout since
1969 — indicated the challenges he faces in building a base of support
for his program.
Ms.
Le Pen conceded the election not long after polls closed in France,
saying voters had chosen “continuity,” denying Mr. Macron his outsider
status and linking him to the departing Socialist government, in which
he served as economy minister.
The
vote was a record for the National Front and, she said, a mandate for
it to become a new “patriotic and Republican alliance” that would be
“the primary opposition force against the new president.”
She
added that the new political divide would be between “patriots and
globalists” and that her party would transform into a new political
force reflecting all those who voted for her.
Early
returns, according to Ms. Le Pen, showed she would receive 11 million
votes, which would be twice the number her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen,
received when he ran a losing presidential campaign against Jacques
Chirac in 2002.
The estimated 38 percent of the vote Ms. Le Pen received was the highest share the French have given to her party.
The
election was also the first in which the National Front candidate,
rather than being a pariah who was shut out of debates and kept off the
front pages of major newspapers, as happened in 2002, was treated more
like a normal candidate despite the party’s anti-Semitic and racist
roots.
Still,
Ms. Le Pen clearly failed to convince a decisive portion of voters that
her party really had changed. Many of the votes Mr. Macron received on
Sunday were no doubt cast not so much in support of him, but in
rejection of Ms. Le Pen.
Mr.
Macron formed his political movement, En Marche! (Onward!), a little
more than a year ago. He was initially given a slim chance of winning in
a country that has never elected a president from outside the
traditional parties, the Socialists on the left and the Republicans on
the right.
Mr.
Macron’s campaign benefited from canny timing and no small dose of
luck, with the collapse of the governing Socialist Party under President
François Hollande, the incumbent, who was so unpopular that he took the
extraordinary step of not seeking re-election.
Mr. Macron received another strong boost from an embezzlement scandal
that damaged the candidacy of the center-right candidate François
Fillon, who at the start of the campaign seemed certain to claim the
presidency.
Mr. Macron has already started to try to build support in Parliament, where he has no party to support him.
His
message — that his new movement is neither right nor left, but
represents a third way, with elements of both — seemed to have appealed
to numerous urban voters as well as to many young voters.
As
the results appeared on a screen set up at the Louvre, Macron
supporters shouted with joy. Some started singing the Marseillaise, the
French national anthem.
“This
is a historic moment,” said Jacques Pupponi, 60, who came with his
children, Noé, 11; Dora, 12; and Eden, 13. “I’ve lived moments like this
before, in 1981,” he said, referring to the election of the Socialist
president François Mitterrand. “I’m very happy about the score — it’s
very, very important,” Mr. Pupponi added, referring to Mr. Macron’s
decisive victory.
For
Mourad Djebali, 30, a Tunisian engineer who obtained French citizenship
a few months ago, the result felt like a personal affirmation. “I’m
moved,” Mr. Djebali said. “I recognize the France that has received me.
“It’s
a great symbol of France,” he added. “It’s a sign of hope. Everyone
doesn’t agree with each other, but that one thing we agree on is that we
should not open the door to the extremes.”
