Centrist Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidential election, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has announced. These elections were the first to be held under the state of emergency that was introduced after terrorist attacks in 2015.
French voters choose between Le Pen & Macron in presidential run-off LIVE UPDATES
French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has confirmed that French voters have chosen Macron as president.
Marine Le Pen has congratulated Macron on his victory. “The French voted for continuity and I called Monsieur Macron Macron to congratulate him on his election,” she said.
BFMTV cited an Elabe poll, which projected that Macron won 65.9 percent of the votes cast, while his rival Marine Le Pen secured 34.1 percent of the vote.
Macron and right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen were neck and neck in the first round of elections that took place on April 23, when Macron got 24.01 percent and his rival Le Pen took 21.30 percent of the vote.
Macron’s first round victory was hailed by many EU politicians, including the country’s president Francois Hollande and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini. Macron’s first round rivals, conservative Francois Fillon and leftist Benoit Hamon, said they would vote for Macron in the second round of the election.
On Friday evening, hours before the election’s day of silence began, Macron’s team confirmed that it had suffered a massive hacking attack after a trove of internal documents was released online. The electoral commission urged the media to be cautious about publishing the details.
On Saturday, Macron found himself at the center of a scandal after the leftist newspaper Liberation called on voters to cast their ballots for Emmanuel Macron on the cover of its pre-election day edition. The move was criticized on social media, with some users blasting the promotion as a sign of “no more democracy.”
Current President Francois Hollande got 51.6 percent of the votes back in 2012, while Nicolas Sarcozy in 2007 secured 53.1 percent. Jacques Chirac got the highest percent of the votes among presidents of the Fifth Republic – 82.2 percent (2002).
