Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected as France’s president for another five years after a convincing victory over rival Marine Le Pen, who received the far right’s highest vote share yet. He won by a larger margin than expected, 58.55 percent to 41.45 percent.
At the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the centrist leader told jubilant supporters that now that the election was over, he would be a “president for all.” He is the first sitting president to be re-elected in 20 years.
Despite her defeat, Ms Le Pen, 53, claimed that her large vote share was still a victory.
She told her supporters that the ideas represented by her National Rally had reached new heights. “It’s the eighth time the Le Pen name has been hit by defeat,” said far-right rival Eric Zemmour, pointing out that she had ultimately failed, just like her father before her: “It’s the eighth time the Le Pen name has been hit by defeat.”
In 2011, Marine Le Pen took over the party founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in an attempt to electability. On Sunday, she received more than 13 million votes on a platform that included tax cuts to combat rising living costs, a ban on wearing the Muslim headscarf in public, and a referendum on immigration controls.
In his victory speech, Mr Macron said, “An answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that drove many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right.” “It will be my responsibility, as well as the responsibility of those around me.”
More than a third of voters did not cast a ballot for either candidate. More than three million people cast spoilt or blank votes, resulting in the lowest turnout in a presidential run-off since 1969.
Although much of France was on vacation on election day, the low turnout reflected voter apathy, as voters complained that neither candidate represented them. The BBC reported that voters who said they were casting blank ballots wanted to punish the current president. Anti-Macron protesters gathered in a number of cities, including Paris, Rennes, Toulouse, and Nantes, to reject the outcome.
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