Macron is expected to get 58.5% of the vote, according to an analysis of polls by sociological sociologists Ipsos & Sopra Steria for France Televisions and Radio, making it the first French leader to be re-elected in 20 years. However, turnout is set to be the lowest for the 2002 presidential run-off, according to government data released late in the afternoon local time. Ipsos & Sopra Steria predicted a abstention of 28.2% for the second round of voting, also the highest since 2002.
French sociologists usually make forecasts at 8 pm local time, when polling stations close in major cities and a few hours before the French Interior Ministry announces official results. These predictions, which are based on data from polling stations that close at 7pm in the rest of the country, are commonly used by candidates and the French media to declare a winner.
Although Macron’s presentation to voters of a globalized, economically liberal France at the head of a muscular European Union defeated Le Pen’s vision of radical change inwardly, 41.5% of those who voted for it put the French far right closer to the presidency than always.
Supporters of Macron, gathered on the Champs de Mars in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, erupted in huge applause when the news was announced.
Within half an hour, Le Pen had given a rebate speech to his supporters gathered nearby in a pavilion in the Bois de Boulogne in western Paris.
“A great wind of freedom could have blown over our country, but the ballot box decided otherwise,” Le Pen said.
Still, Le Pen acknowledged that the far right had never performed so well in a presidential election. She called the result a “historic” and “brilliant victory” that put her political party, the National Rally, “in an excellent position” for the June parliamentary elections.
“The game is not over,” she said.
Macron and Le Pen qualified for the runoff after finishing first and second respectively among the 12 candidates who ran in the first round on April 10. They spent the next two weeks cruising the country to court those who did not vote for them in the first round.
The selection for the second round was a repeat of the presidential run-off in 2017, when Macron – then a political newcomer – defeated Le Pen by almost two votes to one. This time, however, Macron had to have mixed results on domestic issues, such as his attitude to the yellow vest protests and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Macron-Le Pen rematch was expected to be more intense than the first game five years ago. A poll published after the vote in the first round showed that this runoff could be close to 51% to 49%. By the time the election campaign ended on Friday, most polls put the two candidates at about 10 points.
Le Pen’s ability to attract new voters from 2017 is the latest sign that the French public is turning to extremist politicians to express dissatisfaction with the status quo. In the first round, far-left and far-right candidates accounted for more than 57% of the ballots cast, while 26.3% of registered voters stayed at home – leading to the lowest turnout in 20 years.
Le Pen’s campaign has sought to stir up public anger over the cost of living through an intensified campaign to help people cope with inflation and rising energy prices – a major concern of the French electorate – instead of relying on anti-Islamists, anti-immigration and the Eurosceptic positions that dominated her first two attempts to win the presidency in 2017 and 2012.
She presented herself as a more popular and less radical candidate, although much of her manifesto remained the same as five years ago. “Stopping uncontrolled immigration” and “eradicating Islamist ideologies” were the two priorities of her manifesto, and analysts said many of its policies towards the EU would put France at odds with the bloc.
Although Le Pen has abandoned some of her most controversial political proposals, such as leaving the European Union and the euro, her views on immigration and her stance on Islam in France – she wants to make it illegal for women to wear headscarves in public – have not changed. .
“I think the headscarf is a uniform imposed by Islamists,” she said during Wednesday’s only presidential debate. “I don’t think most women who wear one can really do anything else, even if they don’t dare say so.
But Vladimir Putin was perhaps her greatest political responsibility. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Le Pen was a staunch supporter of the Russian president, even visiting him during his campaign in 2017. Her party also took out a loan from a Russian Czech bank a few years ago, which it is still repaying.
Although she has since condemned Moscow’s invasion, Macron has attacked Le Pen in her previous positions during the debate. He claims that she cannot be trusted to represent France when dealing with the Kremlin.
“You talk to your banker when you talk to Russia. That’s the problem,” Macron said during the debate. “You cannot properly defend France’s interests in this matter because your interests are related to people close to Russian power.”
Le Pen said her party had been forced to seek funding abroad because no French bank would approve the loan application, but the defense seemed unable to resonate.
CNN’s Simon Bouvier, Xiaofei Xu, Camille Knight and Elias Lemersier contributed to this report
Add Comment