Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected as president of France. In the second and decisive round of the French presidential election that took place this Sunday, Macron beat off the challenge from his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen. Initial projections gave him a winning margin of close to 58% to around 42%. His victory – by a large margin though slimmer than his win against the same candidate in 2017 – means that the centre-right Macron becomes the first French president to win a second term since Jacques Chirac in 2002. The outcome has been greeted with relief across Europe and around the world, for a Le Pen victory would have had profound implications for France's role in both the European Union and NATO. Macron, who had been the favourite in the polls to win, will begin his second term on May 13th. Attention is already switching to the key Parliamentary elections in June which will determine the nature of Macron's new government. Find out how the election night unfolded with our live coverage of the events and reaction here. Reporting by Michael Streeter and Graham Tearse.
A great deal of attention will be placed on the turnout this time around, with plenty of speculation that voters will stay away because they don't particularly like either candidate.
In 2017 a section of the French Left refused to vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round against the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen because of their profound disagreement with his politics. Now, five years later, some of those same abstainers are planning to return to the voting booths for Sunday's crucial second round vote. The reason? To make sure there is no chance that Le Pen can win by default. Mathilde Goanec spoke to some of these voters who have changed their approach since 2017.
Macron compared France's choice in Sunday's presidential runoff to that of US voters before they elected Donald Trump into the White House, and warned his current polling lead was no guarantee of victory.
Prosecutor's office in Nanterre said it issued the warrant for the former head of Nissan and Renault and four other people based on an investigation opened in 2019 into money laundering and abuse of company assets.
Some 59% of viewers found the sitting president to have been the most convincing in the long TV debate than his rival Marine Le Pen, according to a snap poll for BFM TV.
The far-right's Le Pen won lots to speak first and chose to focus on cost of living, vetoing the broadcaster’s preference to address Ukraine.
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