Paris, April 11 (BNA): The current French President Emmanuel Macron will face nationalist Marine Le Pen in the run-off in which the winner of the French presidential award wins, after both of them advanced Sunday in the first round of voting in the country’s elections. Head-on collision of sharply opposing visions of France.
But while Macron won his last contest in 2017 by a landslide to become France’s youngest-ever president, the same outcome this time is far from guaranteed.
Macron, 44, emerged ahead of the first round on Sunday, but the runoff is essentially a new election, and the next two weeks of campaigning promised by the April 24 second round of voting will be a painful and confrontational one against his longtime political opponent. Age 53 years old. .
Sapphire and more polished In her third attempt to become France’s first female president, Le Pen received a stellar reward Sunday at the ballot box for her years-long effort to redefine herself as more realistic and less extreme.
Macron accused Le Pen of pushing an extremist manifesto to racist and destructive policies. Le Pen wants to roll back some rights for Muslims, ban them from wearing headscarves in public, and drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.
On Sunday, she got her best tally in the first round of votes. With most votes counted, Macron had just over 27% and Le Pen had just under 24%. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon finished third, losing in the two-candidate runoff with a score of close to 22%.
Macron also improved on his first-round showing in 2017, though his presidency has been affected by an almost relentless series of domestic and international crises. Among them was the Russian war in Ukraine, which overshadowed the elections and diverted his focus from the election campaign.
With the ballot indicating that a run-off against Le Pen might be close, Macron immediately began throwing his energies into the fray.
Addressing his supporters on Sunday evening, who chanted “five more years”, Macron warned that “nothing has been done” and said the run-off would be “decisive for our country and Europe”.
Claiming that Le Pen would ally France with “populists and xenophobia,” he said, “This is not us.”
“I want to reach all those who want to work in France,” he said. He pledged to “implement the project of progress, openness and French and European independence that we defended.”
The election results will have a wide international impact as Europe struggles to contain the devastation caused by the war in Ukraine.
Macron has strongly supported European Union sanctions against Russia, while Le Pen has expressed concern about their impact on living standards in France. Macron is also a strong supporter of NATO and the close cooperation of the 27 EU members.
Macron looked for months as if he had managed to become the first French president in 20 years to win a second term. But National Rally leader Le Pen, in a belated rally, has tapped into the first issue on many French voters’ minds: rising food, gas and heating costs due to rising inflation and the fallout from Western sanctions on Russia.
To win the second round, both Macron and Le Pen now need to reach out to voters who backed the 10 presidential candidates defeated Sunday.