Victory for Macron in the French Presidential Election 2022
straitstimes.com
Summary of election results
The French presidential election, spanning a total of two weeks, has finally reached an end with result projections showing a clear victory for Emmanuel Macron. The 44-year-old centrist has taken 58% of the vote and has received congratulations from leaders around the world, including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. His victory marks a new point in history as Macron has become the first French president to be re-elected since Jacques Chirac 20 years ago.
His rival and far-right candidate in the second round, Marine Le Pen, took 42% of the vote in a narrower victory than their previous contest in 2017. Le Pen admitted defeat within minutes of the exit projections but when addressing her supporters said that the unprecedented vote share still represents “a shining victory” for her party.
What does a Macron win mean for Europe?
President Macron’s win largely means a continuation of the last five years: France and Germany remain the most prominent countries in Europe and the French president continues as one of Europe’s leading diplomats.
A better question may be one concerning what Macron’s defeat would have caused in world affairs. It seems that for now France has avoided a move towards extremism with far-right Le Pen’s manifesto including the ban of the hijab in public, prioritisation of alliances with illiberal governments like Poland and Hungary over Germany, wishes to restore good relations with Russia after the Ukraine war is over and even a desire to pull France out of the NATO integrated command structure.
Unprecedented vote share
However, whilst Marine Le Pen may have failed in her third attempt to become president, her share of the vote (42%) marks an important point in the history of France’s Fifth Republic as it is the largest achieved figure by a far-right candidate since 1959. It is also a large improvement on the 34% she achieved in 2017.
Regional breakdowns of the votes show that Le Pen did especially well in the north and east of France — former industrial areas that have had higher unemployment rates and slow growth rates in comparison to the west. Similarly, she also achieved extraordinarily high scores in France’s overseas territories with more than 60 per cent in Martinique and over 69 per cent in Guadeloupe, poor regions that particularly suffered during the Covid lockdown.
This shows an increase in a move towards extremism amongst many in France and it seems to be up to newly elected President Macron to unite France once more in his new term and live up to his promise to be “the president of everyone”.
by Connie Kiew