French President Emmanuel Macron wins reelection, defeats Marine Le Pen

SOURCE: USA TODAY — French President Emmanuel Macron cruised to a second term Sunday, beating back a stronger-than-expected challenge from a far-right populist who has attacked the European Union and NATO and expressed support for Russia.

In a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, Macron led challenger Marine Le Pen with more than 58% of the vote, according to projected results from the French news media, working with national pollsters.

Le Pen conceded shortly after the announced projection. She noted that she improved her performance from five years ago and will now concentrate on legislative elections for her party.

“The game is not completely over,” she told supporters.

Five years ago, Macron defeated Le Pen with more than 66% of the vote.

Macron, 44, who built his own political party to run for president in 2017, won again despite a first term beset by protests of his economic policies, the COVID-19 pandemic and, most recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine that roiled diplomatic relations across the globe.

His reelection also dealt a setback to the populist movements that have upended politics across the Western world, from Brexit to the successes of Viktor Orban in Hungary and Donald Trump in the United States.

“When one puts back together your project brick by brick, it’s a project that’s about getting out of the EU, even if it doesn’t explicitly say so,” Macron told Le Pen in their last debate.

US and EU officials relieved

American and European government officials greeted news of Macron’s reelection with relief. Some analysts in the United States pointed out Macron won despite approval ratings of less than 40% – about the same as President Joe Biden, who is contemplating a reelection run of his own in 2024.

“An interesting observation, just FYI,” tweeted White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. “President Macron appears to have secured a double-digit victory over LePen, at a time when his approval rating is 36%. Hmmm….”

Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, pointed out that another prominent European populist – Slovenia Prime Minister Janez Jansa – also lost on Sunday, according to vote projections.

Those defeats could be “a giant victory for the renewal of democratic values in Europe and a huge setback for populist nationalism,” McFaul said. “Maybe the global tide is turning?”

Others pointed out that Le Pen did better in this French election than the one five years ago, and the conservative populist movement still has to be taken seriously in the U.S. Europe, and elsewhere. Le Pen herself told supporters that “more than ever I will continue my work for the French.”

Far-right Le Pen came out strong after first round

Le Pen had come within 5 percentage points of Macron in the first round of voting two weeks ago, fanning fears of an ultranationalistic turn in French politics. Le Pen has long espoused an anti-immigrant agenda, and in this campaign, she called for banning Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public.

In a Friday interview on BFM television in France, Macron cast the election as a choice “between leaving or not leaving Europe” and “abandoning or not abandoning the secular republic.”

Le Pen, echoing the arguments of anti-globalists across the continent, said France had surrendered its sovereignty to multilateral organizations like the EU and NATO.

In the runup to Sunday’s election, French voters expressed anxiety over issues that have also shaped politics in the United States and elsewhere: inflation, a sluggish economy, fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.