En Marche’s Emmanuel Macron will be the next president of France. After a contentious first round, which led to a run-off vote, Macron secured more than enough votes Sunday to win the second-run elections against former National Front leader Marine Le Pen. It wasn’t even close. In fact, Macron slightly outperformed the polls, winning a whopping 65.1% of the vote against Le Pen’s measly 34.9%. Macron’s huge victory comes one day after the 39-year-old’s campaign team alleged that it had been the victim of a massive cyber attack.
“The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information,” read a statement released by Macron’s self-founded political party. Early indications suggest that Russia may have been behind the attack. In an effort to undermine pro-NATO, pro-European Union candidate Macron, Russian hackers may have leaked Macron’s largely innocuous emails. Le Pen placed rapprochement and better relations with Russia at the centerpiece of her foreign policy campaign, drawing quiet support from Kremlin officials.
#BREAKING – Emmanuel #Macron elected president of France (with 65.1% of the vote) pic.twitter.com/4Vod8NNBm4
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) May 7, 2017
While the numbers are currently in flux, they will likely stick relatively closely to what has been initially reported.
Le Pen conceded defeat shortly after the polls closed, suggesting that the country has “chosen continuity” over radical change.
As The Daily Wire noted after the first round runoff election on April 23, dark horse Le Pen’s probability of winning was quite low, if not negligible.
With just two candidates remaining in the running, Macron was always expected to secure a double-digit victory. Nearly every poll across Europe had him at at least 60%.
For example, here’s the Ipsos poll from April 23:
First Ipsos poll on the second round:
62% Macron
38% Le Pen— Frederik Ducrozet (@fwred) April 23, 2017
The Ipsos poll was within the margin of error, in terms of accuracy.
While it’s true that pollsters got both Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory and Brexit wrong, that never meant that history would repeat itself in France.
With Le Pen dealt a stinging defeat, the powerful winds of populism didn’t cross the English Channel and hit French shores.
“A Macron victory would mark the third time in six months — following elections in Austria and the Netherlands — that European voters have shot down far-right populists who want to restore borders across Europe,” reports The Chicago Tribune. “The victory of a candidate — Macron — who championed European unity could strengthen the EU’s hand in its complex divorce proceedings with Britain, which voted last year to leave the bloc.”
For now, Le-Pen’s brand of welfare-state promoting, xenophobic far-right European populism (not to be confused with American conservatism) and Euro-skepticism has been stopped in its tracks, waiting to fight another day in the years to come.
“Many French voters backed Macron reluctantly, not because they agreed with his politics but simply to keep out Le Pen and her far-right National Front party, still tainted by its anti-Semitic and racist history,” adds the Tribune.
If Macron fails to stabilize the economy, build a strong coalition and fortify France’s national security infrastructure against Islamic terrorist attacks, then Le Pen’s popularity will only surge, giving her a realistic shot at unseating him in five years (French presidential elections used to be held every seven years. Now, they’re held every five years).
Notably, Le Pen’s performance so far has taken the far-right National Front mainstream, a political feat inconceivable last election cycle. Even if she loses (and all indications suggest that she likely will lose in a landslide), Le Pen and her opposition movement (anti-Islamist, anti-immigrant, anti-EU, anti-globalization, anti-trade) won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. The National Front has shown that it could compete at the highest level of French electoral politics, thanks in large part to the refugee and terrorism crises plaguing the country.
This isn’t to say, however, that this election was simply about immigration. In fact, most voters listed economic concerns as their top priority.
In a battle between Le Pen’s socialist-inspired economic nationalism and Macron’s European-minded globalization, the latter ultimately won out.
A supporter of free trade, Macron “promised to cut corporate tax rates gradually to 25% from the current 33%,” according to CNN Money. “He also wants to slash local housing taxes for the majority of French people.”
“He has pledged to cut public spending by €60 billion ($64 billion) a year, partly by making the government more efficient,” adds CNN. “He said he would cut up to 120,000 government employees by not filling positions as workers retire.”
In his victory speech on Sunday, Macron embraced his “En Marche,” or “forward,” message, declaring that “a new page of our longer history is turned” in France.
We’ll have to wait and see how that translates into economic, immigration, and national security policy.