Macron wins French presidential election

France's incumbent president, Emmanuel Macron was reelected on Sunday, April 24, with 58.55% of the votes compared to 41.45% for his rival, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Mr. Macron's victory makes him the first French president in 20 years to win a second term.

The result is narrower than their second-round clash in 2017, when the same two candidates met in the run-off and M. Macron polled over 66% of the vote.

M. Macron will be the first French president to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002 after his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande left office after only one term.

The 44-year-old gave a victory speech on the Champ-de-Mars in central Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower where flag-waving supporters erupted in joy when the projections appeared at 8:00 p.m.

After walking toward the stage to the sound of the "Ode to Joy," the European Union’s anthem, he started his address by a simple "Thank you!" and praised the majority who gave him five more years at the helm of France.

Mr. Macron also thanked people who voted for him not because they embrace his ideas but because they wanted to reject far-right rival Marine Le Pen. "I’m not the candidate of one camp anymore, but the president of all of us," he said. "No one will be left by the side of the road," Macron also said during victory speech while he was cheered by several hundred supporters who waved French and EU flags.

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The relatively comfortable margin of victory will give Macron some confidence as he heads into a second five-year mandate, but the election also represents the closest the far-right has ever come to winning power in France.

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Leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Sunday that Marine Le Pen’s defeat is "very good news for the unity of our people," and vowed to lead the fight against Emmanuel Macron’s party in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

M. Mélenchon, who failed to reach the second round by a few hundred thousand votes and had urged his supporters not to give "a single vote" for Ms. Le Pen, said Macron’s "presidential monarchy survives by default and under the constraint of a biased choice."

In his address, M. Mélenchon exhorted M. Macron’s opponents to vote in June’s parliamentary elections to "choose a different path" and elect a majority of leftist lawmakers. M. Mélenchon said he would be prepared to lead an opposition government. "Courage, action, determination, always refusing fatality and resignation," M. Mélenchon said.

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A victory by Ms. Le Pen, accused by opponents of having cosy ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, would have sent shockwaves around the world comparable to the 2016 polls that led to Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump's election in the United States.

Several European leaders and politicians have swiftly congratulated M. Macron for his reelection, as his far-right rival conceded defeat.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted in French, "together we will make France and Europe advance."

The Dutch prime minister also tweeted in French his hope to "continue our extensive and constructive cooperation in EU and NATO."

In Germany, politicians around the political spectrum offered support, including from the pro-business Free Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and conservative Christian Social Union. Many in Europe had worried Le Pen would undermine European unity and its post-war order.

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Macron will be hoping for a less complicated second term that will allow him to implement his vision of more pro-business reform and tighter EU integration after a first term shadowed by protests, then the pandemic and finally Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But he will have to win over those who backed his opponents and the millions of French who did not bother to vote.

On the basis of the official figures, polling organisations estimated that the abstention rate was on course for 28% which, if confirmed, would be the highest in any presidential election second-round run-off since 1969.

The outcome of the first round on April 10 had left Macron in a solid but not unassailable position to retain the presidency.

Convincing supporters of the hard-left third-placed candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon to hold their noses and vote for the former investment banker was a key priority for Macron in the second phase of the campaign.

Macron will also need to ensure his party finds strong grassroots support to keep control of a parliamentary majority in legislative elections that come hot on the heels of the presidential ballot in June and avoid any awkward "cohabitation" with a premier who does not share his political views.

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High on his to-do-list is pension reform including a raising of the French retirement age which Macron has argued is essential for the budget but is likely to run into strong opposition and protests.

He will also have to rapidly return from the campaign trail to dealing with the Russian onslaught against Ukraine, with pressure on France to step up supplies of weapons to Kyiv and signs President Vladimir Putin is losing interest in any diplomacy.

For Le Pen, her third defeat in presidential polls will be a bitter pill to swallow after she ploughed years of effort into making herself electable and distancing her party from the legacy of its founder, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Critics insisted her party never stopped being extreme-right and racist while Macron repeatedly pointed to her plan to ban the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in public if elected.

She has suggested this could be her last campaign and speculation is now expected to mount about the future of her party and the French far-right, which splintered during the campaign.

When Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the second round in 2002, the result stunned France and he won less than 18 percent in the subsequent run-off against Chirac.

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Le Monde with AP and AFP