French Presidential Election: Macron and Le Pen advance

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have won the first round of the French presidential election. There will be a second vote on May 7, and the winner will become the next President of France.

This unconventional election has seen four frontrunners vying for the presidency – Macron, Le Pen, François Fillon and Jean Luc Mélenchon. Within touching distance in the polls, Sunday’s election saw Macron and Le Pen reach the second round with 23.8% and 21.5% of the vote respectively. (Fillon won 19.9%, and Mélenchon 19.6 %).
Voter turnout was at nearly 78% – Macron dominated regions in the west and centre of France, and Le Pen polled strongly in the north-east and south-east.

Macron is the founder of a centrist political movement, On The Move! (En Marche!), and served as finance minister under François Hollande. His platform includes a 50 billion euro public investment plan, cuts to corporate tax and a projected 60 billion saving in public spending. At 39, he is the youngest candidate ever to seek office.

Le Pen is the head of the far-right National Front (FN). She has promised an immediate suspension of immigration and the automatic expulsion of illegal immigrants, as well as prioritising French nationals for social housing. Her campaign has been bolstered by a number of terrorist attacks in France, including the shooting of a policeman on Paris’ Champs Élysées last Thursday.

The incumbent Socialist Party (PS) candidate was Benoît Hamon, running after President Franois Hollande’s unprecedented decision to not seek a second mandate in the face of record levels of unpopularity. Hamon won 6.4% of the vote.

This result marks the first time neither of the main two parties has reached the second round, becoming the next major country to suffer a blow to so-called ‘politics as usual,’ after the UK Brexit vote and the US election of President Donald Trump.

This election also has considerable stakes for the European Union (EU). If she wins, Le Pen will seek renegotiations with the EU, which could lead to a French exit from the union. One of the founding members, economists believe the EU would be unable to survive France’s exit.

Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is the only other candidate to have reached the second round, in the 2002 election. He was defeated by the incumbent Jacques Chirac, winning 17.8% of the vote to Chirac’s 82.2%. The polls suggest that Le Pen will easily be defeated by Macron. Both Fillon and Hamon threw their support behind Macron after they were defeated – Mélenchon is yet to endorse either candidate.

The presidential election will be followed by legislative elections on June 11 and 18, in which voters will choose their members of Parliament (or députés). The French president holds significant power, but needs parliamentary approval to enact a legislative agenda. If voters choose a parliament in opposition to the president, it will be harder for the president to govern.