Macron, Le Pen and Melenchon lead first round of French elections
Outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron has won the first round of the French presidential election, and will face far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the crucial second round on April 24.
According to the official French TV network, Macron took first place with 28.4 percent of the vote, while Le Pen got 23.4 percent in second place.
Macron and Le Pen competed in a second round in the 2017 presidential election.
In third place was the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who received about 20 percent of the vote.
One in four young voters supported Macron, although more than one in three voters aged between 18 and 24 chose Jean-Luc Mélenchon, according to Elab polls.
Le Pen performed best among people aged between 35 and 64, while the president was favored by those over 65.
After the preliminary results of the first round appeared, the French Foundation for Public Opinion conducted a new opinion poll for the “TF1” channel on the second round of the elections, the results of which came as follows: 51 percent for Macron and 49 percent for Le Pen, which confirms that the current French president faces A very difficult challenge.
James Shields, professor emeritus of French studies at the University of Warwick, said Macron was no longer a “candidate of hope and change”.
As for the opinion poll of the “BFM” channel, it showed that the gap ranged between 52 percent for Macron and 48 percent for Le Pen. An Ipsos survey indicated that the gap between the two candidates’ scores would be slightly wider.
Mélenchon, whose supporters may play a crucial role in defining the next president, warned his supporters: “We must not give a single vote to Marine Le Pen.” He repeated this call repeatedly, but unlike the other candidates, he did not support Macron.
Le Pen can count on the backers of Eric Zemmour, as did the nationalist Nicolas Dupont Aignan.
Most of the other candidates on the left backed Macron, as did Valerie Pecresse, but socialist candidate Segolene Royal said the president should now have “scored” victory.
Macron and Le Pen address the crowd
After the results of the first round were released, both Macron and Le Pen asked French voters to vote for each other during the second round.
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Macron told his supporters.
“When the extreme right in all its forms represents a large part of our country, we cannot feel that things are going well,” he said.
He indicated that he hoped to persuade those who did not vote or who voted for extremist candidates to join him in the second round.
“Leading populism and xenophobia, this is not France,” he added.
He continued, “I believe in all of us, regardless of our origins and beliefs.”
Le Pen invited those who did not vote for Macron in this round, to vote for her in the second round.
She said she would be “the president of all the French people” if she was elected in the second round. She touched on all the topics she covered in her pre-election campaign, including “reasserting French values, controlling immigration and ensuring security for all.”
Le Pen indicated that there was a fundamental choice on April 24 between two opposing visions, “either division and chaos, or the union of the French people around a guaranteed social justice.”
As her supporters chanted, “We will win,” she vowed to “re-arrange France within five years.”
How did the results of the other candidates come about?
Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour, who received 7.2 percent of the vote, did not perform as expected.
Conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse, who received just 5 percent of the vote, scored the main right’s worst result in decades, according to France Info.
The same was true for Anne Hidalgo, the centre-left Socialist Party’s candidate, who received 2.1 percent of the vote.
The Green Party candidate, Yannick Gadot, fared marginally better, but his results were still worse than expected, with 4.4 percent of the vote.
Macron and Le Pen supporters hail the results
Loud cheers were heard at Emmanuel Macron’s residence as the preliminary results were released.
The flags of France and the European Union flew in glee among supporters in the vast conference hall.
At Le Pen’s headquarters, she also heard the cheers of her fans, indicating that they feel that Le Pen has done very well.
This is the highest percentage achieved by Le Pen in the three presidential campaigns in which she participated.
After the preliminary results were released, conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse urged voters to choose Macron in the second round.
She said the far right was no closer to power, but that the French “had to say no to extremism.”
Socialist party candidate Anne Hidalgo asked her followers to vote for Macron in the second round.
The far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon and the Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel and Yannick Gadot of the Green Party also asked their followers to vote for Macron in the second round, in reference to their efforts to remove the far-right from power.
Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour urged his supporters to vote for Le Pen in the run-off.
The most prominent thing that dominated the election campaigns in this presidential race is the sharply rising cost of living, especially energy bills and the decline in people’s purchasing power.
When Macron came to power as the leader of a new party in 2017, he was able to defeat the old contenders, and the two largest parties are still healing the wounds of that defeat.
picture released, Getty Images
Polls for both rounds put Marine Le Pen behind Macron by a very narrow margin
A state of uncertainty prevailed over the days before the vote. An opinion poll conducted by the Ipsos Institute indicated that 37 percent of voters have not yet decided who they will vote for.
At first, the COVID-19 pandemic, then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cast a shadow over these elections.
For many voters, the stigma of voting for the far right is no longer what it used to be.
12 candidates contested the first round of the French elections
After her defeat at the hands of Macron in the 2017 elections, Le Pen changed the name of her National Front to the National Rally, although many of its policies remain unchanged.
Le Pen appears to be more moderate than the more extreme right-wing Zemour.
high cost of living
The French economy is in good shape, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 7.4 percent, but voters nevertheless do not feel that their economic conditions are improving because prices are generally high.
The phrase you hear everywhere is pouvoir d’achat which means ‘purchasing power’ but is known in English as ‘cost of living’.
Thierry, who lives outside Paris and runs a shoe store, says prices have skyrocketed. He points out that “the cost of shoes increased by 20 percent to 30 percent, and all taxes rose as well.”
That is why many candidates have promised to increase the minimum wage, in some cases by hundreds of euros. The minimum is scheduled to rise at the beginning of May to about 1,300 euros (1,430 US dollars) per month after tax.