After a year of a controversial presidential campaign, filled with a fake-jobs scandal, the creation of new political movements such as “En Marche!”, and the power up of the French nationalist and populist political party, The National Front (FN), the French voted this morning. The results came on TV at 8:
Emmanuel Macron, the Centrist candidate of En Marche! and Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate of the FN qualified with 23.9% and 21.7% of the votes. The abstention rate is likely to be around 20%, thus being in line with the one of the previous election.
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Le Pen’s niece and an FN elected party official talks about a “historic victory of patriots and sovereignists.” Indeed, the FN hasn’t qualified for the second round of the elections since 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the FN qualified with 16.86% against Jacques Chirac who at the time won 19.88% of the votes. Chirac, who was a Republican, won with a huge majority the second round of the election, becoming the French president with 82.21% of the votes — a historic score, no one had ever been elected with so many votes.
Chirac’s victory at the time was greatly influenced by the support of other candidates who were all trying to avoid a victory of the FN. Now, the question is, will the same thing happen in 2017?
Benoît Hamon, a Socialist candidate, who got 6,3% of the votes, along with Bernard Cazeneuve, Socialist French Prime Minister, and other figures of the French Socialist Party like Christiane Taubira, Myriam El Khomri, Jean-Marc Ayraut, etc, all gave their next vote to Macron. François Fillon, the Conservative candidate, who today arrived third with 20% of the votes, also decided to vote for Macron.
However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, hard-left candidate who arrived fourth today with 19.2% of the votes did not express his support to either of the candidates. Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, left-wing candidate who got 4.8% of the votes said he will give his indication of vote in the following week. Poutou, the Anticapitalist candidate who got 1.1%, and Nathalie Arthaud, also a Communist candidate who got 0.7% of the votes, both explain they will not vote for Macron, saying the Centrist candidate is not a “rampart against the National Front.”
According to a poll realized by Ipsos a few days ago, Macron would win against Le Pen with 62% of the votes. But the second round of the election will be held on May 7 and only then, we will know who of Marine Le Pen, the eurosceptic, anti-immigrant candidate, or Emmanuel Macron, ex-economy minister under President Hollande who just created the centrist movement En Marche! will become the next French President.
