PARIS — Emmanuel Macron has become the first French president in two decades to win a second term, holding off a far-right challenge by Marine Le Pen that could have upended Europe.
Macron’s victory offers continuity for France and another five years of political stability for the 27-nation European Union, which has been buffeted by years of challenges from far-right populists, Brexit, an immigration crisis, and now Russia’s war in Ukraine. France and Germany are the pillars of the bloc, and policymakers in capitals across the continent had been watching the election with anxiety.
The E.U. anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” played as Macron arrived for his victory speech in front of the Eiffel tower, where people waved French and E.U. flags. He claimed the election as a win for “an ambitious humanist project” for France and Europe. But he also gestured to Le Pen’s supporters.
“I know that the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to opt for the far right, to vote for this project, must also be addressed,” he said. “This will be my responsibility.”
Despite Le Pen’s apparent defeat, Sunday’s finish was the far-right’s best result ever in a French presidential election, and 7 percentage points higher than Le Pen’s result in 2017.
The release of projected results was met with a mix of boos and solemn silence at the Parisian park pavilion where she held her election night event. But Le Pen remained defiant. She denounced “two weeks of unfair, brutal and violent methods” to prevent her win, and said that “tonight’s result represents in itself a resounding victory.”
A win by Le Pen, 53, would have put an anti-immigrant populist who has expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin in charge of the European Union’s second-biggest economy and its only nuclear power. It would have also replaced a fervent E.U. defender with a fierce critic of the bloc.
Some European leaders feared a Le Pen presidency could have begun an unraveling of western institutions. Especially while a war rages in Ukraine that has united European leaders to an unusual degree, a Le Pen win would have sent a shock wave through NATO and imperiled the flow of French weaponry that has quietly flowed to Kyiv.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was among the first world leaders to congratulate him, writing on Twitter: “Together, we will move France and Europe forward.”
The result reaffirms Macron’s role as Europe’s de facto leader, now that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has retired and her successor is engulfed by turmoil related to the war in Ukraine. Macron will have another five years to put his stamp on the European Union, which he has sought to turn in a French direction, stretching the tight fiscal rules that were imposed when Germany had the tighter grip.
“In Brussels, he’s now a very strong figure,” said Guntram Wolff, the head of Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy think tank.
But in France, a key question for Macron, 44, will be whether most of the people who voted for him on Sunday back his platform, or whether they only voted for him to prevent a Le Pen victory. If the latter is the case, the incumbent could still face an onerous second term — marked by resistance on the streets and in parliament — that may further polarize the country and embolden the fringes of French politics.
After result became clear Sunday night, clashes broke out between protesters and police officers near Place de la Republique in Paris and in the French city of Rennes.
“The question is, will he hear the feeling of malaise that exists in the French electorate? … Will he be able to change?” said Vincent Martigny, a political scientist at the University of Nice.
In his victory speech, Macron addressed those who voted for him despite their disagreements with his presidency. Their “vote will bind me for the years to come,” he said.
But whether he can address the frustrations with him that have mounted may not be entirely up to Macron alone. With France bumping against the limits of those regulations about government debt and spending, Macron may also be forced to impose some Brussels-driven austerity on his population in the coming years, steps that will be unpopular with the vulnerable voters who are already skeptical of his rule. It remains to be seen whether his reelection will calm the far-right currents shaking the continent, or simply offer the bloc a temporary reprieve.
France will hold parliamentary elections in June, in which some of the frustrations could be on full display. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Sunday called those legislative elections — which normally attract little attention in France — the presidential election’s “third round,” suggesting a fierce electoral battle ahead in the coming weeks.
In her speech, Le Pen had similarly called on her supporters to support her party in June. “The game is not quite over,” she said.
“Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon position themselves as leaders of the opposition,” said Antoine Jardin, a political scientist.
The result was more decisive than the final polling averages that suggested Macron would win by a margin of 10 to 12 percentage points. The difference may be partly explained by late-deciding voters. Macron’s polling lead had been increasing in the days before the runoff, and France’s ban on publishing new polls after Friday at midnight would have prevented fully capturing that surge.
There was still uncertainty going into Sunday’s vote. France is known to be especially unforgiving of its incumbents. And there’s not nearly the same level of enthusiasm for Macron as when he first ran in 2017, launching his own centrist political movement and becoming France’s youngest president.
The turnout rate on Sunday was projected to be 72 percent, according to France’s public broadcaster, which would make it the lowest in the second round of a presidential election in half a century.
He has disappointed some of his supporters by pushing through tax cuts for the wealthy, being less ambitious than some hoped on climate change, and tacking right on immigration — in ways that were calculated to appeal to Le Pen voters but that also echoed the messages from migration-skeptic leaders in Hungary and elsewhere.
Le Pen, meanwhile, has had some success in moderating her image and bringing her party into the mainstream. Her focus on bread-and-butter issues also resonated with voters.
Macron barely did any campaigning before the first round of voting, instead focusing on the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It’s not uncommon for French incumbents to avoid the campaign trail, but his decision enabled Le Pen to claim, as she crisscrossed the country, that she was more attuned to the economic concerns on the minds of French voters — the number one issue over the past weeks.
Still, Sunday’s result suggested that Le Pen failed to convince the French that she is the best candidate to address those problems.
“I want to let [Macron] have one more term to continue what he has put in place,” said Jean-Philippe Dahene, 56, a Macron voter in the far-right stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, citing the series of crisis that disrupted Macron’s presidency, including the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
But some worry that Macron’s victory will only temporarily alleviate France’s growing polarization.
Almost 60 percent of voters cast their ballots for far-right or far-left candidates in the first round.
“Macron should try to listen to all these people who are in difficulty,” said Nathalie Meslin, 58, a lawyer who voted for Macron in Paris on Sunday, even though she said she doesn’t agree with all of his proposals. “In the next 5 years, this anger is likely to grow and unfortunately we risk having extremes come to power.”
When Macron faced off against Le Pen five years ago, he beat her by a margin of more 30 percentage points. But that the gap narrowed to the single digits at certain points this campaign cycle suggests that Le Pen has succeeded at normalizing her party and moderating her image.
Supporting the far right was unthinkable for many in France at the time Le Pen took the party over from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was known for xenophobia and for calling Nazi gas chambers just a “detail” of World War II.
Le Pen renamed the party from National Front to National Rally in 2018. She downplayed her family links, with campaign posters referring to her as “Marine” or just “M.”
But even as Le Pen moderated her image, she continued to stand by many of her most radical proposals. In this campaign, she advocated for a referendum to end immigration to France, for women to be fined for wearing headscarves in public, and for a French-first approach to policies that would put her in direct confrontation with European Union laws and values.
Le Pen faced significant resistance to her campaign, both from her rivals in French politics and from abroad. Ahead of the election, the leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal had penned an extraordinary joint oped calling for French voters to choose Macron, and, they said, “democracy.”
Even if Le Pen made significant gains compared to five years ago, French citizens still ultimately chose a man who has wrapped himself in the blue and gold flag of the European Union.
Birnbaum reported from Riga, Latvia, and Petit reported from Hénin-Beaumont, France. Lenny Bronner in New York and Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report.