The Viewpoint: French Election Results

Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected as the next French President in what turned out to be a closely fought battle with Marine Le Pen.

• The French election results were announced Sunday evening with Emmanuel Macron winning the Presidency with 58.5% of the votes and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen capturing 41.5% of the vote.
• Macron’s victory notwithstanding, Le Pen has managed to galvanize the right wing sentiment in France. Political pundits agree that Macron has to adapt his politics to this new reality.
• Experts agree that Macron’s victory was simply to keep Le Pen out of the Presidency’s reach rather than a validation of Macron’s policies. This is a fact Macron acknowledged in his victory speech.
• This election has also brought into question the two-round French electoral system. In the first round this year, the gap between Le Pen and veteran leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon was under 2%.
• However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has called on voters to make him the Prime Minister in the legislative elections in June. If done, he has promised to make it difficult to pass reforms the left opposes.
• The stage is set for a testing time for Macron for the next term as his path to the Presidency this time around has been laid with a lot of compromises on the voters’ front.