Macron wins French presidency by emphatic margin: projections

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Reuters

Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France on Sunday with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union, early projections showed.

The centrist's emphatic victory, which also smashed the dominance of France’s mainstream parties, will bring huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain's vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump's election as U.S. president.

The 39-year-old former investment banker, who served for two years as economy minister but has never previously held elected office, will now become France's youngest leader since Napoleon with a promise to transcend outdated left-right divisions.

Three projections, issued within minutes of polling stations closing at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), showed Macron beating Le Pen by around 65 percent to 35 - a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had pointed to.

Even so, it was a record performance for the National Front, a party whose anti-immigrant policies until recently made it a pariah in French politics, and underlined the scale of the divisions that he must try to heal.

________

Le vote.

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

 

 

 

[nickydog]

39 years old.  So very young.

[Valin]

The French election: Our man in Paris reports

Paul Mirengoff

May 7 2017

We have a correspondent in Paris (why should Council Bluffs be the only city so honored?). He’s an American who has lived and worked in Paris for the last 15 years as an attorney. He’s been involved in U.S. politics on behalf of the Republican Party in the expat community in France for the same period.

He filed this report:

 

1. The election was won by centrist En Marche candidate Emmanuel Macron by a very significant margin – approximately 66% for Macron against 34% for his adversary, the nationalist right-wing Front National candidate Marine Le Pen. Macron will be sworn in as president next Sunday.

There was somewhat more abstention (about 25%) in this election than in the last one, but the turnout is still extraordinarily high by US standards (millions of people actually went in person to cast blank ballots, as a means of demonstrating civic participation while still registering dissatisfaction with the choices – a practice I applaud). Turnout was probably hurt by the unpopularity of the candidates, the general feeling that Macron was certain to win, the weather (welcome to northern Europe), and the fact that this is a three-day weekend, so lots of people were enjoying a vacation.

(Incidentally, France takes tomorrow off as a national holiday, to celebrate V-E Day. Good on them.)

2. Macron is an unusual figure: 39 years old, background in finance before entering government, former Socialist Party cabinet minister. He created his new party, En Marche (approximately, “Off We Go”) only in April of 2016. Distrusted by the left because of his business background; distrusted by the right because of his association with the Socialists, as well as his unconventional marriage to his former high school drama teacher.

While a minister, he pushed through a law (known as the “Loi Macron” after the charming French tradition of naming bills after their sponsor, so that you remember who to blame later) that attempted to modernize economic regulation. It was nibbled to death in parliament, but it’s overall concept wasn’t completely idiotic.

3. It’s essential to remember the French voting system: there was a “first round” of voting two weeks ago, with an infinity of candidates in the race. Only the top two vote-getters go on to the second round. Macron and Le Pen each got about 25% in the first round; Fillon (scandal-plagued candidate for the center-right Les Républicains) got 20%, as did Melonchon (perennial representative of the hard-left La France Insoumise), with the Socialists getting less than 10%.

The Front National is still utterly anathema to a huge part of the country (for good reason; cf. infra). Thus, a huge number of people who voted today for Macron were voting against Le Pen, rather than supporting Macron himself.

In this context, it’s useful to remember that France has only very recently adopted a primary system for the parties to choose presidential candidates, and they haven’t really figured out how the interaction between primary and general elections will impact their politics. For example, Hamon, the candidate for the Socialists, won in the primaries on the votes of the left, and therefore got entirely plastered in the general. Fillon fought a very hard primary race against Alain Juppé in the Les Républicains primaries, and didn’t have time to heal all the wounds before the general.

 

(Snip)

[nickydog]

The Powerline article is well written and informative.  Thanks for posting, @Valin.

[Valin]

 

Black Bloc?

[Valin]

18 minutes ago, Valin said:

 

Black Bloc?

 

From The Comments

 

Andrew Jensen

 

Moral of the story. The leftists will riot no matter who wins. They won't stop until every country collapses into communism

[nickydog]

If I lived in Paris right now I'd feel a little unsettled.