#Emmanuel Macron, the former finance minister of the previous government and a trained investment banker – with the bare minimum of political experience – has swept to victory on Sunday in the French elections. He was opposing the National Front's right wing agitator #Marine Le Pen who scored only 37% of the votes, against Macron's astonishing 62%.
The win suggests that Macron's new #centrist attitude to politics has brushed out any concerns that France, with its latest period of terrorist attacks, rising unemployment and sluggish economy, was ready to vote for a staunch right-wing nationalist with extremist views.
Emmanuel Macron talks to France
Polls were effectively closed by eight o'clock across France as the scores were announced on Sunday night. Emmanuel Macron is the #youngest ever President to govern over France's fifth republic, which makes him the youngest in 59 years.
A total newcomer, #Macron introduced France, suffering from political and economic burn-out, to his surprisingly renegade take on the country's traditional political system. It was an unlikely campaign that some say through luck and good timing, landed him the most important seat of power in the European Union.
After his win was assured, #François Hollande, the outgoing French president, congratulated the young Macon who had previously and only two years ago been his relatively inexperienced economy minister.
#Macron talked to the country about the “big honor, and an immense responsibility” that he had taken on with winning the French presidency. He made sure that everyone in France knew he was speaking to them – and not simply to the ones who had voted for him.
The breakdown of the vote
Of those who did vote for Macron, 43% of them chose him on their ballot in a united effort to keep Le Pen out; they knew that if they didn't galvanize their support behind a candidate that they thought imperfect that the outcome of Le Pen winning would be far worse.
This battle between two bad outcomes rocked France in the past few weeks, as the defeated leftist candidate refused to throw his support behind Macron, saying that it wasn't up to him to tell people not to vote for Le Pen.
A mere 39 percent of Macron's voters want him to have an absolute majority in the new parliament after the upcoming legislative elections in June.
An atmosphere of doubt and fear in France
Following on from his win, Macron told the country that he was well aware that there was a troubling climate of “anger, anxiety and doubt” in France currently and that he promised to work hard and be “implacable and entirely resolved” in defending the country's security after the last few years of #terrorism activity. He also told the country that his biggest task in the coming years is to calm people's fears, and restore the country's confidence once again by bringing everyone together to stand strong and face the " immense challenges that face us in the future”.
Macron's victory has also brought significant relief to the endangered EU zone, since #Marine Le Pen had campaigned that she would leave the union to seek her own nationalistic policies, even going so far as printing the franc once again and having a double currency taking place in the economy.
This would have severely undermined the stability of the European Union, which would have had a ripple-on effect and potential impact on the Western world, what with Brexit and the #Germany and Italian elections coming later in the next year.
For this reason, the #French Election was being closely watched as a barometer of the wave of populist sentiment that has pulled Britain from the European Union and seen Donald Trump sweep into the White House.
