In France, Macron and Le Pen, again, for the presidency

PARIS – Incumbent Emmanuel Macron will face far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen in a run-of-the-mill victory for the French presidency, after both advance Sunday in the first round of voting. in the country’s election to set up another confrontation that clashed head-on over their sharply opposing visions of France.

Macron won their last election in 2017 by a landslide to become France’s youngest-ever president, but a similar outcome this time is far from guaranteed. . Macron, now 44, had taken the lead from Sunday’s first round, but the runaway is essentially a new election and the next two weeks of the campaign for a second round vote on May 24. 4 promises to be thrilling and confronts his 53-year-old political foe.

Savvier and more polished as she made her third attempt to become France’s first woman president, Le Pen was well-rewarded Sunday at the ballot box for her years of effort to judge. Its re-branding is more pragmatic and less extreme. Macron has accused Le Pen of promoting an extreme manifesto of racist, racist policies. Le Pen wants to restore some rights to Muslims, ban them from wearing the hijab in public and drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.

On Sunday, she achieved her best-ever first-round vote total. With most votes counted, Macron has 27% and Le Pen just over 24%. Leftist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon came in third, missing out on two candidates, with almost 21%.

Macron also improved his first-round performance in 2017, despite his presidency being rocked by a near-constant series of domestic and international crises. These include Russia’s War in Ukraine that overshadowed the election and diverted his focus from the campaign.

With polls suggesting that the tide against Le Pen could be near, Macron immediately began pouring all of his energy into the fight.

Addressing supporters on Sunday night, who chanted “5 more years”, Macron warned that “nothing has been done” and said the withdrawal campaign would be “decisive for our country and for Europe.”

Declaring that Le Pen would rank France with “populists and xenophobia,” he said: “It’s not us.”

“I want to reach out to everyone who wants to work for France,” he said. He vowed to “implement the project of progress, for the openness and independence of France and Europe, which we have supported.”

The Election results will have wide international influence as Europe struggles to contain the devastation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Macron has been a strong supporter of European Union sanctions on Russia while Le Pen worries about their impact on French living standards. Macron is also a staunch supporter of NATO and the close cooperation between the 27 members of the European Union.

Macron for months looked like a hit to becoming the first president of France in 20 years to win a second term. However, the leader of the National Electoral Organization Le Pen, in a late growth spurt, tapped into the most important issue on the minds of many French voters: soaring costs of food, gas and heating. due to rising inflation and the consequences of Western sanctions against Russia.

To win the second round, both Macron and Le Pen now need to reach out to voters who support the 10 presidential candidates defeated on Sunday.

For some frustrated supporters of the losing side, the flow vote promises to be difficult. Voter Jennings Tangly, a 21-year-old English major at the Sorbonne University in Paris who supports Melenchon, said a second-round match was a dire prospect for her, a choice “among the plagues of the plague.” and cholera”.

She described Macron’s presidency as “a failure”, but said she would vote for him in the second round simply to keep Le Pen away from the president’s Elysee Palace.

“It would be more of a survival vote than a vote of my heart,” she said.

Le Pen supporters celebrated with champagne and chanted “We will win!” She sought to reach out to left-wing supporters for the second half by promising to fix “a divided France”.

She said the second round presented voters with “a fundamental choice between two opposing visions of the future: Division, injustice and disorder imposed by Emmanuel Macron for the benefit of a few.” , or the solidarity of the French around social justice and protection. ”

Some of her defeated opponents were so worried about Le Pen’s ability to beat Macron that they urged their supporters on Sunday to pass the second-round vote to the incumbent. Melenchon, speaking to supporters at times with tears in his eyes, repeatedly said: “We must not give a vote to Mrs. Le Pen”.

Describing herself as “deeply nervous”, defeated conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse warned of “chaos to follow” if Le Pen is elected, saying the far-right leader never been so close to power. Pecresse says she will vote for Macron in the delivery.

To beat Le Pen, Macron will aim to cast off her rebranding attempt as a less dangerous political force, a rip-off that even highlights her love of cats.

Her gentle image won some votes but made others even more suspicious.

Yves Maillot, a retired engineer, said he voted for Macron just to counterbalance Le Pen. He said he feared that her long-standing animosity with the EU might lead her to try to get France out of the bloc, although she dropped that from her manifesto.

“I don’t think she changed at all,” he said. “It’s the same thing, but with cats.”

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here