Emmanuel Macron told his supporters: "In one year, we have changed the face of French politics." Photo / AP
Emmanuel Macron told his supporters: "In one year, we have changed the face of French politics." Photo / AP
Centrist Emmanuel Macron has taken a big step toward the French presidency by winning the first round of voting and qualifying for the May 7 runoff alongside far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Though Macron, 39, is a comparative political novice who has never held elected office, new opinion polls yesterday had him easily winning the final clash against the 48-year-old Le Pen.
Yesterday's outcome is a huge defeat for the two centre-right and centre-left 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 European Union and the election of Donald Trump as United States President.
In a victory speech, Macron told supporters of his fledgling En Marche! (Onwards!) movement: "In one year, we have changed the face of French politics."
He went on to say that he would bring in new faces and talent to transform a stale political system if elected.
Conceding defeat even before figures from the count came in, rival conservative and Socialist candidates urged their supporters now to put their energies into backing Macron and stopping any chance of a second-round victory by Le Pen, whose anti-immigration and anti-Europe policies they said spelled disaster for France.
Two polls yesterday had Macron winning more than 60 per cent of the second-round vote.
In a race that was too close to call up to the last minute, Macron, a pro-EU ex-banker and former Economy Minister who founded his own party only a year ago, had 23.9 per cent of the votes against 21.4 per cent for Le Pen.
Seconds after the first projections came through, Macron supporters at a Paris conference centre burst into the national anthem, the Marseillaise. Many were under 25, reflecting some of the appeal of a man aiming to become France's youngest head of state since Napoleon.
With an eye to Le Pen's avowedly France-first policies, Macron told the crowd: "I want to be the president of patriots in the face of a threat from nationalists."
If he wins, Macron's biggest challenges will lie ahead, as he first tries to secure a working parliamentary majority for his young party in June, and then seeks broad popular support for labour reforms that are sure to meet resistance. Addressing the battle ahead, he declared he would seek to break with a system that "has been incapable of responding to the problems of our country for more than 30 years". "From today I want to build a majority for a government and for a new transformation. It will be made up of new faces and new talent in which every man and woman can have a place," he said.
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 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.
Marine Le Pen hopes to make history as France's first female president. Photo / AP
Le Pen's party comes out swinging
Round two of the bitter fight for the French presidency got under way yesterday within hours of first-round results with far-right leader Marine Le Pen's top aide launching a stinging attack on her centrist opponent, Emmanuel Macron.
"Emmanuel is not a patriot. He sold off national companies. He criticised French culture," Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen's National Front, told BFM TV, saying she and Macron held completely different visions of France.
Philippot called the independent centrist and former investment banker "arrogant" and said that Macron, in his speech yesterday acclaiming his move into the May 7 second round, "was speaking as if he had won already".
"That was disdainful towards the French people," Philippot said.
Macron's victory dinner celebrations at Paris' upscale Rotonde restaurant amounted to "bling-bling biz", he said.
Though Macron, 39, is a comparative political novice who has never held elected office, new opinion polls yesterday saw him easily winning the final clash against the 48-year-old Le Pen.
A Harris survey for M6 television saw Macron going on to win the runoff against her by 64 per cent to 36. An Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll for France Televisions gave the result to Macron, 62 per cent to 38 per cent.
Analysts say Le Pen's best chance of hauling back Macron's big lead in the polls is to paint him as a part of an elite aloof from ordinary French people and their problems.
Part of that strategy would be to remind voters of Macron's former roles as a deal-maker in investment banking and Economy Minister in the discredited Government of outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande.
