PARIS (Reuters) – Centrist Emmanuel Macron, running on the “En
Marche!” platform, and far-right National Front leader Marine Le
Pen are set to face each other in a May 7 runoff for the French
presidency after coming first and second in Sunday’s first round
of voting, according to multiple projections. The result makes Macron most likely to become the next
president of France. Though Macron, 39, is a comparative political novice who has
never held elected office, opinion polls in the run-up to the
ballot have consistently seen him easily winning the final clash
against the 48-year-old Le Pen. Sunday’s outcome spells disaster for the two mainstream groupings
that have dominated French politics for 60 years, and also
reduces the prospect of an anti-establishment shock on the scale
of Britain’s vote last June to quit the EU and the election of
Donald Trump as U.S. president. The euro currency was quoted higher immediately after the first
projections were issued, with banks quoting the US dollar at
around $1.092 versus $1.072 on Friday evening, according to
Reuters data. In a race that was too close to call up to the last minute,
Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker and economy minister who
founded his own party only a year ago, was projected to get 24
percent of the first-round vote by the pollster Harris, and 23.7
percent by Elabe.
Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU National
Front, was given 22 percent by both institutes. At least three
further pollsters all projected broadly similar results. Macron’s supporters, gathered at a Paris conference center burst
into singing the national anthem, the Marseillaise, a few seconds
after results came through. Many were under 25, reflecting some
of the appeal of a man aiming to become France’s youngest head of
state since Napoleon. Le Pen, who is herself bidding to make history as France’s first
female president, follows in the footsteps of her father, who
founded the National Front and reached the second round of the
presidential election in 2002. Jean-Marie Le Pen was ultimately crushed when voters from right
and left rallied around the conservative Jacques Chirac in order
to keep out a party whose far-right, anti-immigrant views they
considered unpalatably xenophobic. His daughter has done much to soften her party’s image, and found
widespread support among young voters by pitching herself as an
anti-establishment defender of French workers and French
interests.
