France’s outgoing president, Francois Hollande, has urged people to back centrist Emmanuel Macron in a vote to choose his successor next month and reject far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose place in the run-off represented a “risk” for France.
Macron and Le Pen, leader of the National Front (FN), go head-to-head on May 7 after taking the top two places in Sunday’s first round.
Opinion polls indicate that the business-friendly Macron, who has never held elected office, will take at least 61% of the vote against Le Pen after two defeated rivals pledged to back him to thwart her eurosceptic, anti-immigrant platform.
Hollande, a Socialist nearing the end of five years of unpopular rule, threw his weight behind his former economy minister in a televised address, saying that Le Pen’s policies were divisive and stigmatised sections of the population.
“The presence of the far-right in the second round is a risk for the country,” he said. “What is at stake is France’s make-up, its unity, its membership of Europe and its place in the world.”
Global markets reacted with relief to Sunday’s vote, which broke the dominance of established parties of the centre-left and centre-right but still left the most market-friendly and internationally-minded of the remaining contenders in pole position to become France’s next leader.
The euro touched five-month peaks while Europe’s STOXX 600 index rose 2%.
Surveys pointing to a clear Macron victory soothed investors who have been unnerved by Le Pen’s pledges to ditch the euro, print money and possibly quit the EU.
Many had feared another anti-establishment shock to follow Britain’s “Brexit” vote and Donald Trump’s election as US president.
Opening the battle for second-round votes, Le Pen highlighted the continuing threat of Islamist militancy, which has claimed more than 230 lives in France since 2015, saying that her 39-year-old contender was “to say the least, weak” on the matter.
Le Pen has promised to suspend the EU’s open-border agreement on France’s frontiers and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services.
Macron’s internal security programme calls for 10,000 more police officers, and 15,000 new prison places, and he has recruited a number of security experts to his entourage.
However, opinion polls over the course of the campaign have consistently found voters to be more concerned about the economy and the trustworthiness of politicians.
Others in Le Pen’s campaign took aim yesterday at what they see as further weak spots: Macron’s previous job as an investment banker, and his role as a deregulating economy minister under Hollande.
Analysts say Le Pen’s best chance of overhauling Macron’s lead in the polls is to paint him as a part of an elite aloof from ordinary French people and their problems.
“Emmanuel is not a patriot. He sold off national companies. He criticised French culture,” Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen’s National Front, told BFM TV.
Philippot called Macron “arrogant” and said his victory speech on Sunday had shown disdain for the French people by making it appear as though the presidency was already won.
In that speech, Macron appeared to respond to Le Pen’s claim to be the protector of France’s workers and their values by saying: “I want to be the president of patriots in the face of a threat from nationalists.”
Le Pen needs to avoid a repetition of 2002, when her father, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, surprisingly made the second round, but was then humiliated by right-wing president Jacques Chirac as mainstream parties united to block a party they considered racist and anti-Semitic.
His daughter has done much to soften the National Front’s image, gathering support especially among young people – a quarter of whom are unemployed – with her promises to push back against “rampant globalisation”.
Still, two defeated candidates – conservative Francois Fillon and Socialist Benoit Hamon – did not even wait for Sunday’s count to urge their supporters to rally behind Macron.
A Harris survey saw Macron going on to win the run-off against her by 64% to 36%.
An Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll gave a similar result while a new poll by Opinionway yesterday put the margin at 61% to 39%.
Whichever candidate wins on May 7 will need to try to build a majority six weeks later in a parliament where the National Front currently has only two seats and Macron’s year-old En Marche! (Onwards!) movement has none.
Macron has already enlisted some 50 sitting Socialist lawmakers to his cause, as well as a number of centrist party grandees.
Manuel Valls, a former Socialist prime minister on the right wing of the party who broke with the far-left Hamon’s campaign after failing to beat him for the party ticket, said yesterday that he would be ready to work with Macron.
“We must help him (Macron) as much as we can to ensure Le Pen is kept as low as possible,” Valls told France Inter radio.
Sunday’s outcome was a huge defeat for the two centre-right and centre-left groupings that have dominated French politics for 60 years.
Conservative Francois Fillon, who had been the favourite to win the election before allegations emerged that he had paid his wife and two children from the public purse for work they did not do or did very little of, came in at third with less than 20% of the vote.
Hamon got only a third of the 19.5% secured by the maverick former Trotskyist Jean-Luc Melenchon, emphasising the disarray of the French Left after five years of Hollande.


Candidates to stage TV debate on May 3
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will hold a TV debate on May 3, four days before the run-off vote in France’s presidential election, aides to Macron said yesterday.
The debate will be broadcast nationwide on two TV channels, a source said.
Macron first sought a debate with Le Pen in February “which she refused. Now we are going to have one”, the source added.
Le Pen’s campaign director, David Rachline, earlier said that the debate “should take place” as it would help the public “to see with great clarity the two choices of society which are being put forward”.


Final tally:  Macron took 24.01%, Le Pen 21.30%
Emmanuel Macron won 24.01% of the votes in the first round of the French presidential election on Sunday, final results from the interior ministry showed yesterday.
Marine Le Pen won 21.30%, conservative candidate Francois Fillon 20.01% and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon 19.58%.
Socialist Benoit Hamon won 6.36% and nationalist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 4.70%.
Among the smaller parties, Jean Lasalle won 1.21%, Philippe Poutou 1.09%, Francois Asselineau 0.92%, Nathalie Arthaud 0.64%, and Jacques Cheminade 0.18%.




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