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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Jon Henley in Paris

Macron vows to unite divided France after victory over Le Pen – as it happened

Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron acknowledge voters in front of the Eiffel Tower after his speech. Photograph: Aurélien Meunier/Getty Images

Summary

We’re going to wrap this liveblog up now; here is my colleague Angelique Chrisafis’s updated story on Macron’s victory and here is a summary of what has happened this evening:

  • Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected president of France, scoring an estimated 58.8% of the vote against the estimated 41.2% of his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen
  • The centrist Macron’s victory was higher than predicted by any poll and marked the first time in 20 years that a French president has been re-elected
  • His margin of victory was significantly narrower than the 66%-34% win he managed against the same contender five years ago, however, and Le Pen’s score was the highest ever recorded by her far-right party
  • The far left and far right immediately called for unity in their respective camps with the aim of thwarting Macron’s second term ambitions by denying him a clear majority in parliamentary elections due in June
  • In his victory speech at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, Macron vowed to respond “efficiently” to the “anger and disagreement” of voters who chose the far-right and called on his supporters to be “kind and respectful” because the country was riven by “doubt and division”
  • Le Pen said her result was “a striking victory” and that the ideas she represented “had reached new heights”, adding: “In this defeat, I can’t help but feel a hope.” She said she would not be standing aside from politics, as many suspected she would if she lost
  • European leaders including Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, and British prime minister Boris Johnson congratulated Macron on his victory amid sighs of relief around EU capitals at the pro-European centrist’s re-election.
  • This summary was amended on 25 April 2022 to give 41.2%, rather than 48.2% as Marine Le Pen’s estimated popular vote tally as of 21:48 UK time on election night.

Updated

The New Statesman’s Jeremy Cliffe on Macron’s – surprisingly brief – victory speech:

Updated

Here is a long and very good thread on the loger term consequences of the result for France and Europe from Cas Mudde of the University of Georgia in the US, a leading expert on populism and regular Guardian contributor.

Tldr: it’s complicated. Tonight is obviously a huge relief and good news, but the parliamentary elections will be criticial for the next five years in France and no one can possibly predict where Macron’s centrist movement - bust also not Le Pen’s far-right party after her third successive defeat - will be by 2027.

Marine Le Pen concedes defeat to Emmanuel Macron – video

There may be a spot of bother brewing on the Place de la République, according to my colleague Kim Willsher:

The police are there in force:

Updated

Brigitte Macron speaks of her pride and delight at her husband’s victory:

France is the most beautiful country in the world, the problem is that we don’t always know it. I feel an immense emotion - and such a great honour that I can only hope to be worthy of. I have every confidence in my husband; he has a vision for the country and he will make it work.

Updated

A little background reading, on where Marine Le Pen goes from here:

And what awaits Emmanuel Macron as his second term begins:

He promises to try:

to heal the divisions that have been expressed in these elections, by ensuring respect for everyone, every day. I want a fairer society, equality between women and men ... The years to come will certainly be difficult, but they will be historic and we will have to write them, together, for the new generations.

A singer launches into La Marseillaise.

Macron continues, addressing those who vote for him but do not necessarily support him, and those who voted against him:

I also know that many French people voted for me to block the far right. I also want to thank them, and tell them that their vote places me under an obligation.

Those who abstained, could not decide, those who voted for Marine Le Pen … Because I am no longer the candidate of one camp, but the president of all.

A victorious Macron adresses his supporters

Macron is speaking now:

Thank you dear friends, first of all: thank you. A majority of you have chosen to place your confidence in me for another five years ... I know what I owe you.

The crowd shouts: “Macron, président”.

Emmanuel Macron is now walking with his wife Brigitte and her children to the stage on the Champ de Mars at the foot of the Eiffel tower, to the tune of the European anthem - Beethoven’s Ode to Joy – as he did five years ago.

Updated

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has congratulated Macron:

Your voters have sent a strong vote of confidence in Europe today. I am happy that we will continue our good cooperation.

More from tomorrow’s debut of the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter - assistant editor Nimo Omer has spoken to Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director of the Eurasia Group consultancy. Rahman argues that Macron’s comfortable margin of victory is crucial:

It will give Macron and his allies a tremendous amount of momentum heading into the legislative elections… a Macron win against Le Pen is of course, massively important, but now the big question becomes, will he be able to deliver a coherent majority through which he will be able to govern for the next five years.

Rahman also argues that claims Macron’s supporters were largely motivated by fear of Le Pen are wide of the mark:

Macron scored more than most expected in the first round, and I think that suggests there is a very large demographic of French voters that do pro-actively support him. The French typically hate incumbent presidents. He’s achieved a really astounding feat this evening.

First Edition is a new free daily newsletter, bringing you the headlines and a deep dive on one big story every day at 7am. If you’d like to sign up, click here.

Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the mainstream right-wing Les Républicains party who was heavily defeated in the first round, congratulates Macron on his victory.

She says his win “must not disguise the divisions in our country that produced a record score for Marine Le Pen”.

She hints at possible support from the moderate wing of the centre right for Macron’s group, saying “onwards to the parliamentary elections with a centre-right aiming to defend the turnaround that France needs”.

My colleague Angelique Chrisafis has this to say on the projected first round result:

The pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron has won a second term as French president, becoming the first leader to win re-election in France for 20 years, after a bruising campaign in which he beat the far right’s Marine Le Pen by a decisive 58.2% to 41.8%, according to initial projected results.

Macron, who is to address supporters in a victory rally at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, beat Le Pen with a lower margin than the 66% he won against her in 2017. Turnout was also lower than five years ago, with abstention estimated at 28%.

Le Pen succeeded in delivering the far right its biggest-ever score in a French presidential election, after campaigning on the cost of living crisis, and promising a ban on the Muslim headscarf in public places as well as nationalist measures to give priority to native-French people over others for jobs, housing, benefits and healthcare. She called it “a shining victory in itself”, adding: “The ideas we represent are reaching summits.”

You can read Angelique’s story here:

Georgina Wright of the respected Institut Montaigne in Paris has a brief Twitter thread on the consequences of Macron’s victory for the EU:

According to the pollsters Ipsos, 42% of voters who cast their first-round ballot for far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon backed Macron in the second round, 10 percentage points less than in 2017, while 17% opted for Le Pen, 10 points more than five years ago.

  • This segment was amended on 25 April 2022. Referring to the second-round shift by some far-left voters, an earlier version mistakenly reported Ipsos as saying Macron accrued 10 percentage points more than in 2017, and Le Pen 10 points less.

Updated

Gabriel Attal, the government’s official spokesperson, says he welcomes the result with “gratitude and responsibility”:

The French people chose him over Marine Le Pen in the second round. This is a historic result with a historical responsibility. Obviously we must act very quickly, to protect the French, to move forwards on the cost of living crisis and on the climate crisis.

For tomorrow’s launch of the Guardian’s new First Edition newsletter, Archie Bland has been speaking to Cas Mudde, a political scientist and leading expert on populism and the radical right.

Mudde says that the story of the result is “pretty clear, and it was pretty clear from the beginning”:

Macron is going to be re-elected with much less support and lower turnout and that is in the short-term really a relief – but in the long term, it is kicking the can down the road. I’m not saying Le Pen or whoever replaces her is going to win in 2027, there is too much space to say that, but Macron’s mandate is weaker than the last.

Calling it a hollow victory would be too harsh. It is very important. But it comes with significant red flags. If I compare it to 2017, there was a hope Macron was going to be the alternative, to reinvent liberal democracy, and that is not where we are this time around.

First Edition is a new free daily newsletter, bringing you the headlines plus a deep dive on one big story every day, at 7am. If you’d like to sign up, please do click here.

Updated

The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has congratulated Macron:

As has the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who says she “looks forward to continuing our excellent cooperation. Together, we will move France and Europe forwards.”

Updated

Macron’s economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, is speaking now from the Champ de Mars, while Macron’s supporters wait for the newly re-elected president to appear:

This is very good news for the majority, for the president of the Republic. The French have made a clear choice which gives a solid mandate to Emmanuel Macron and his future majority for the next five years.

The main thing for me is to get back to work as soon as possible. There is a lot to do on inflation, on the economy. Basically, reindustrialisation. We must also hear what so many voters said on the environment. We must move faster in the fight against global warming.

Le Maire also promises Macron’s second term “will be different. We are determined to hear those who abstained, those who spoiled their ballots, to provide them with the most concrete answers possible, as soon as possible.”

Updated

Éric Zemmour, Le Pen’s far-right rival in the first round, observes that this is “the eighth time that defeat strikes the Le Pen name” but says it is “not inevitable” that the forces of nationalism lose every election.

He says his movement will be at the forefront of the fight, but urges a “grand union” of the patriotic right ahead of the parliamentary elections.

“Two major blocs are organising, the radical left and the centre, and the nationalist bloc must also unite. Our responsibility is immense. It is indispensable. It is our duty.”

Updated

Macron’s supporters are celebrating wildly on the Champs de Mars. His victory speech is expected at around 9pm local time.

Updated

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father and the former leader of what was then the Front National who lost by a landslide to Jacques Chirac in 2002, watches the news of his daughter’s defeat “without comment, his face expressionless”, according to Aurélie Lebelle of Le Parisien:

Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director of the EurasiaGroup consultancy, says this is a “great victory” for Macron, France and Europe, more comprehensive than the polls predicted, that will give him momentum running up to the parliamentary elections in June:

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, warns of trouble ahead for Macron if he does not take into account the nature of his victory:

I think that the French have been deprived of a true choice. It would be a serious mistake on the part of Emmanuel Macron to consider that this re-election means that he can continue carrying out the same policy, in the same manner, for the next five years.

Updated

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical left leader who could play a crucial part in the upcoming parliamentary election, is speaking now:

Madame Le Pen has been beaten. France has clearly refused to entrust its future to her, and this is very good news for the unity of our people.

However, Emmanuel Macron has become the most poorly elected president of the Fifth Republic. His victory is floating in an ocean of abstentions and spoiled ballots.

The ‘third round’ is now under way and it is essential that the united forces of the left – the new Popular Union – secures a majority in the national assembly.

Updated

Le Pen says the fight continues

Marine Le Pen is talking now, denouncing “two weeks of unfair tactics” since the first round.

We would of course have liked the result to be different. With more than 43% of the vote, this represents a striking victory. Millions of our compatriots have chosen the Rassemblement National.

We are more determined than ever. I have no resentment. We will not forget the France that is forgotten. The ideas that we represent have reached new heights. In this defeat, I can’t help but feel a hope.

Dismissing reports that she planned to retire if she did not win, she says she will “continue my commitment to France and to the French”, adding that “in a few weeks, the parliamentary elections will take place. This is not yet over. We declare the battle for parliament open.”

Updated

Clément Beaune, Macron’s Europe minister, is among the first to react:

This is a clear victory, the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that a president has been re-elected when he also has a majority in parliament. It’s important, it’s very important, because this was a political combat, a political combat against the far right.

Updated

That’s a 16 percentage point difference for Emmanuel Macron, more than the biggest winning margin predicted by any of the pre-election polls.

Macron re-elected French president, according to projections

Emmanuel Macron has defeated his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in the second round of France’s presidential elections, projections show.

According to usually accurate estimates, the incumbent scored between 57.6% and 58.2% of the vote, against 42.4% to 41.8% for the Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader.

Updated

Fifteen minutes to go and the tension is, well, climbing.

The result will also be being watched closely around Europe. A Le Pen victory would throw the EU into turmoil, as the Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin and I argued in this article:

Much of what the far-right leader does want to do – on the economy, social policy and immigration – implies breaking the EU’s rules, and her possible arrival in the Élysée Palace could prove calamitous for the 27-member bloc.

Le Pen may have dropped previous pledges to take France – a founder member of the EU, its second-biggest economy and half of the vital Franco-German engine that has powered it since its creation – out of the euro single currency and the bloc.

In the 2017 election, fears of the economic consequences of that policy, above all among older voters worried about their savings, are widely seen as having contributed to her heavy second-round defeat against the pro-European Emmanuel Macron.

This time, the EU does not even feature by name among the dozen or so key themes of her electoral programme. Many of her concrete policy proposals, however, blatantly contradict the obligations of EU membership.

Opponents and commentators have called the strategy “Frexit in all but name”: an approach that, while it may no longer aim to remove France from the bloc, seeks to fundamentally refashion it, and that could lead to a paralysing standoff with Brussels.

You can see read our full story here:

Updated

Most polling stations are now closed and we’ll be getting the initial estimates of the result in about half a hour now.

A reminder that these are not exit polls, but projections based on actual votes cast in a representative selection of polling stations around the country, that are then weighted by the pollsters to give a national estimate of vote share.

These estimates are historically very accurate indeed, so we can be pretty confident about the final result if there is anything more than a one percentage point difference between the contenders.

Three major polling organisations are now predicting a 28% abstention rate, which would be the highest in France since 1969, reflecting the unhappinessof many voters with the choice they are being offered (and the fact that it’s the Easter holidays in much of the country).

It’s hard to say which candidate would be most impacted by a low national turnout, because the regional breakdown would be decisive. The real concern is for after the vote, because being elected on a low turnout would inevitably lead to questions about the legitimacy of the incoming president.

Worth noting, though, that in many western democracies a 72% turnout would be considered high.

French citizens overseas are voting today, too, and the Guardian’s Matt Weaver has been talking to some of the 116,595 of them who are registered to vote in London.

After spending three hours speaking to dozens of voters, Matt says he “could not find a single voter for the far-right candidate” – perhaps hardly surprising given that in 2017 Macron won 95% of the second-round vote in London.

Michelle Pickard, a French teacher, said:

The first priority is to block Le Pen, but I quite approve of Macron’s policy, and he is a true European and I am too. If he wins it will be a small victory, and he will have to take onboard all these voters who are not happy with him.

Christian Eskenazi, a retired chief sommelier, was less enthusiastic about the incumbent:

I find him too arrogant, but I’m pro-European and anti-Le Pen so I had to go for him. It was not a vote for a politician, it was a vote against an idea. My mother survived Auschwitz but she saw her mother and father die there. She spent her life visiting schools as a witness against racism and xenophobia. She warned of the dangers of voting for the far right, and the danger is still there.

You can read Matt’s full story here:

Updated

Both candidates are now back in Paris from their northern constituencies, French media report.

Macron is ensconced in the Élysée Palace on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and will later join his campaign team near the Eiffel Tower. Le Pen is at her campaign headquarters in the west of Paris.

Updated

With less than two hours to go before the initial estimates of the result, here are some of the pictures that have come in from the agencies during the day:

Marine Le Pen meets supporters after casting her ballot in Henin-Beaumont on Sunday.
Marine Le Pen meets supporters after casting her ballot in Henin-Beaumont on Sunday. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA
Franciscan nuns from the order of Saint Clare collect their ballots at a polling station in Cormontreuil, north-east France
Franciscan nuns from the order of Saint Clare collect their ballots at a polling station in Cormontreuil, north-east France. Photograph: François Nascimbeni/AFP/Getty
Macron casts his vote in Le Touquet, northern France.
Macron casts his vote in Le Touquet, northern France. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/AFP/Getty
And Le Pen does the same in Henin-Beaumont, northern France.
And Le Pen does the same in Henin-Beaumont, northern France. Photograph: Michel Spingler/AP

Updated

If Macron does win, as polls so far have predicted, he will be the first French president since Jacques Chirac in 2002 to secure a second term – and Chirac was massively helped by being up against Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, whom he defeated in a landslide.

In fact, only three of Macron’s predecessors as president have won re-election, and none have managed it while at the head of a parliamentary majority in the national assembly. Charles de Gaulle was re-elected in 1965, but his initial election in 1958 was by an an electoral college.

France’s first Socialist president, François Mitterrand, and Chirac both won re-election but they did so without having a majority in parliament, so they were largely exempt from criticism over their record since they were not fully in control of government.

Updated

Whatever the outcome, Macron and Le Pen have their plans prepared for the evening, both in Paris.

Win or lose, Macron will address his supporters on the Champ de Mars, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower – another Paris landmark, after the president chose to celebrate his 2017 victory in the courtyard of the Louvre.

Press are already starting to arrive, as Claire Paccalin of France24 reports:

If Le Pen wins, she plans to parade through the capital in a car at the head of the 13 National Rally coaches that have carried her campaign around the country.

The procession will start from the Pavillon d’Armenonville, a Belle Epoque-style venue in the Bois de Boulogne where the far-right leader’s campaign team will gather for the result, before taking in the Arc de Triomphe and three of the capital’s main squares – the Place de la Concorde, Place de la Bastille and Place de la République.

It’s unclear if it will go ahead if she loses.

Updated

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical-left leader of La France Insoumise (Unbowed France), also voted earlier today.

Mélenchon finished a close third to Le Pen in the first round a fortnight ago and is now focusing his attention on rallying the scattered forces of the French left for the parliamentary elections in June, as my colleague Kim Willsher explains in an article for the Observer today:

Whoever wins the presidential election in France, one man is determined to sideline them and restrict their powers.

Even before the result is known tomorrow, the radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has emerged as a surprise kingmaker, has called on voters to make him prime minister in the legislative elections in June.

Mélenchon, a fervent opponent of both Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, pledged that if successful he would force whoever wins the keys to the Élysée tomorrow into an uncomfortable parliamentary “cohabitation” that would hamstring efforts by them to pass reforms the left opposes.

You can read Kim’s full article here:

Updated

Both candidates voted earlier in the day. Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, cast their ballots in his constituency in the resort of Le Touquet at about 1pm, showing their ID and voter cards like every other voter.

And Marine Le Pen voted in her constituency in Hénin-Beaumont in northern France, just south of Lille, soon after 11am.

Updated

Turnout at 5pm stands at 63.2%, accoring to the interior ministry – that’s 1.8% lower than during the first round, and 2.1% down on the second round five years ago.

For the time being this doesn’t look like the surge in abstentions that some had feared.

Although, as Mathieu Gallard of pollsters Ipsos points out, the projected abstention rate of 28% would be the lowest turnout for a presidential run-off since 1969.

Updated

The basics

A quick reminder of how Macron and Le Pen reached this final round, what their respective platforms are, and how we can expect the evening to unfold.

The current president and his far-right rival finished first and second – from a field of 12 – in the first round of voting two weeks ago, on 10 April.

Macron polled just under 9.8m votes (27.85% of those cast) and Le Pen 8.13m votes (23.15%). The radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came a close third with 7.7m votes, just 420,000 short of Le Pen. The candidates for the mainstream right and left imploded, with Valérie Pécresse of the rightwing Les Républicains scoring 4.7% and Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor who ran for the Socialist party, managing just 1.7%.

Macron’s manifesto includes a cap on fuel prices, index-linked pensions and a progressive rise in the retirement age to 65. He also campaigned for a stronger Europe.

Le Pen has promised to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for those who began work before the age of 20, cut VAT on fuel, and pass a new “national preference” law that would give French nationals priority for housing, jobs and benefits.

Most polling stations close at 7pm local time and those in big cities and hour later. Initial estimations of the result are expected from several pollsters at 8pm.

These are not exit polls but projections based on actual votes cast in a representative sample of polling stations around the country, weighted by the pollster’s magic. They are usually very accurate.

Updated

The abstention rate could be critical in this election, as could the number of voters who spoil their ballots.

Turnout at midday was 26.41%, according to the interior ministry – higher than the 25.48% turnout for the first round, but lower than at midday in 2017 when it was 28.23%.

But national turnout figures can disguise strong regional variations, which could prove vital. For the moment, no significant pattern seems to have emerged that might favour either candidate.

Updated

It's le crunch

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the crucial second round in France’s presidential elections to decide who occupies the Élysée Palace in Paris for the next five years.

The high-stakes race pits the centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, against his challenger Marine Le Pen, of the far-right Rassemblement National – and its outcome could prove far-reaching not just for the future direction of France but for Europe as a whole.

Polls since the two candidate’s testy TV debate on Wednesday have shown Macron’s score stable or rising at between 55.5% and 57.5%, a lead of between 10 and 14 points. But they also predict the lowest turnout for a presidential runoff since 1969, which means a shock Le Pen win cannot be ruled out.

The race is in any case much closer than when the two contenders met in 2017, partly reflecting Le Pen’s long, successful drive to sanitise her party and normalise its policies, and partly reflecting the perception of Macron among many voters, notably on the left, as a “president of the rich”.

We’ll be bringing you news, comment and analysis from me, the Guardian’s Paris bureau chief Angelique Chrisafis and correspondent Kim Willsher, with usually accurate projections of the results due when polling stations close at 8pm local time.

Updated

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