Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will repeat their 2017 duel in the second round of the French presidential electionsfollowing the first round this Sunday left the outgoing president with a slightly larger margin of advantage than expected by the polls.
The announcement of the results coincided with calls by most of the defeated candidates to establish a new “cordon sanitaire” and prevent the far-right Le Pen from reaching the head of state in the second round on April 24.
With 96 percent of the vote counted but still not counting some of the largest cities in the country, Macron had 27.41 percent of the votes, for 24.03 percent of Le Penaccording to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
This is the best result in the history of the extreme right in a first presidential round.
After hearing the results, both were quick to ask for the support of those who had not voted for them, given the prospect of a second round that the polls anticipate will be much closer than that of 2017.
MACRON WILL SEEK TO “UNITE CONVICTIONS” AND PEN MADE A CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR THE CURRENT MANAGER
Macron extended his hand “to everyone” and he was willing to “invent something new to unite diverse convictions and sensitivities” facing the second round, as he said in his speech amid the noisy enthusiasm of his followers.
He insisted that his project is “the only one” that can respond to the challenges facing the country, such as defending the purchasing power of citizens or the fight once morest climate change.
Instead, an exultant Le Pen assured that the president and she represent “two different visions of society” for which she called for unity around herself: “All those who have not voted for Macron are invited to join this unification“.
Behind the two winners of the first round was the veteran leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.57 percent), who was once more frustrated to obtain the useful vote of all the leftist and environmentalist candidates to try to reach the second round. .
The main losers were the two great traditional parties of the Fifth Republic, the conservative LR and the socialist PS, which reaped the worst results in their history: Valérie Pécresse (LR) remained at 4.75 percent and the socialist Anne Hidalgo , mayor of Paris, sank to 1.74 percent.
CALLS TO STOP THE FAR RIGHT
Looking ahead to the second round, Macron almost immediately received the support of other candidates to curb the extreme right in the second round: Pécresse, Hidalgo, the ecologist Yannick Jadot (4.49 percent) and the communist Fabien Roussel (2.33 percent) said they would vote for him or directly asked their supporters to support the president.
Le Pen would erase France “from the international scene” and “would bring chaos,” warned Pécresse.
“They should not give Le Pen a single vote.“, Mélenchon proclaimed to the applause of his followers, although without expressly asking for the vote for Macron.
Le Pen received the support of the far-right Éric Zemmour, who following a meteoric rise a few months ago stood at 6.97 percent, and also of the sovereigntist Nicolas Dupont-Aignant (2.1 percent), who had already backed him Five years ago.
in 2017, Macron almost doubled Le Pen in votes (66-34 percent)but today’s polls of voters point to a much narrower margin two weeks from now: Ipsos gives the president the win by 54-46 percent, the same margin as OpinionWay, while Ifop narrows the lead further: 51- 49 percent.
Today’s turnout stood at around 74.84 percent, the lowest in a modern first presidential round since the 2002 record (71.6 percent), but far from fears of historic abstention.