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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Alexandra Topping

French election: Macron and Le Pen go to second round – as it happened

French presidential election: Macron and Le Pen through to final round

Summary

Thanks to our readers for staying with us throughout our coverage of the first round of the 2017 French presidential election. I’m signing off now, but continue following my colleagues Angelique Chrisafis, Kim Willsher and Jon Henley for all things Gallic. There will be much more to come in the two weeks ahead.

Here is a summary of our election coverage this morning:

•Emmanuel Macron has come under fire for celebrating his first-round result with his staff, inner circle and a few celebrity friends in a Paris brasserie, La Rotonde, on Sunday night. Marine Le Pen tried to capitalise on the criticism saying she was “the candidate of the people”.

•Le Pen hit the campaign trail hard on Monday morning and took every opportunity to criticise her rival, calling him “weak” on Islamist terrorism.

•Support for Macron has flooded in from political leaders across Europe, including Angela Merkel’s spokesperson in Germany and the Labour party in the UK. Theresa May’s Conservative party have refused to back any candidate.

•The first opinion poll since the first round of the French presidential election has centrist candidate Macron beating the far-right candidate Le Pen in the second round by 61% to 39%.

•The French stock market surged as investors welcomed last night’s election results. The CAC 40, which contains the largest French companies, jumped by 4% at the start of trading to its highest level since April 2015.

Updated

Before he makes his first post-election public appearance, Emmanuel Macron has been working the phones with the office of the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, announcing that the two men spoke earlier today.

Greece’s leftist leader not only offered his congratulations to Macron but also appeared ultra-confident that the centrist politician would emerge victorious in the second round.

“The prime minister congratulated Mr Macron on the result, wished him the best of luck in the [election’s] second round against the far right, and expressed his confidence that with his election there would be a continuation of the close ties of friendship and cooperation between Greece and France.”

In Greece’s long-running economic crisis, Paris has often rallied to Athens’ defence when the going has got tough with EU power-master Germany.

Updated

Senior Muslim leader backs Macron

A senior French Muslim leader has called on the country’s nearly 5 million Muslims to “vote massively” to elect Emmanuel Macron president.

Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, called the final 7 May vote to choose the next French head of state “decisive for the destiny of France and its religious minorities”.

He said:

The Grand Mosque of Paris and its National Federation (FGMP) call on Muslims in France to vote massively for candidate Emmanuel Macron.

Without referencing Marine Le Pen explicitly, Boubakeur said French citizens must comprehend the “threat embodied by xenophobic ideas dangerous to our cohesion”.

Updated

Student unions and campaign groups including SOS Racisme, Ni Putes Ni Soumises and the CFDT union are telling people to gather “everywhere in France” at 6pm to “reaffirm our desire to live together”. You can read the note from SOS Racisme (in French) here.

Gatherings are expected in Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Grenoble, Nice and Chatellerault.

Updated

Marine Le Pen is set to go on France 2 tonight at 8pm local time, she has tweeted.

Labour back Macron

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, said Labour was backing Macron, leaving the Conservatives the only mainstream party not to do so.

She said: “French voters face a stark choice in this election, but it’s clear that only one of the remaining candidates is offering an inclusive and tolerant vision of the country’s future. Heading into the second round, we hope that the ultimate result will be a victory for the politics of optimism over the politics of division and fear.”

Also interesting tweet from the US foreign policy wonk Richard N Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Updated

Downing street remains neutral for France's second round

Downing Street is refusing to back the French centrist presidential candidate, Emmanuel Macron, in his runoff against the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen.

Theresa May invited Macron to Downing Street during his campaign visit to the UK in February, prompting criticism from the Front National leader.

But the prime minister’s official spokesman would not be drawn on the outcome of the first round of the French election. Asked if May would now engage with Le Pen, the spokesman said there was a “longstanding policy of not commenting on ongoing elections in other countries”.

Most of the French presidential candidates defeated in the first round have urged their supporters to back Macron against Le Pen, with the notable exception of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has said he will consult his supporters before making a decision on who to back.

Britain’s Labour party has yet to make a comment on the French result. But leaders of the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party have all backed Macron, who topped the poll in the first round with 23.8%.

Updated

Macron to make first post-vote public appearance

Macron’s battle plan for the next two weeks is, thus far, entirely unknown. But the leader of En Marche! is going to make his first public appearance since the first round of voting this afternoon.

He will place a wreath at the statue of Komitas in la place du Canada in Paris at 3.30pm local time to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

It’s been something of a slow start for Macron today, in comparison to Le Pen who has been on the campaign trail since this morning.

Updated

Representatives from the European Union and European parliament have backed pro-Europe Macron, taking an exceptional stance during an ongoing campaign.

It will be a “fundamental” choice between the defence of the EU or those seeking its destruction, said the EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas. He said Macron represented pro-European values while Le Pen “seeks its destruction”.

The president of the European parliament, Antonio Tajani, also backed Macron, saying he believes far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will not win in the second round of the presidential election on 7 May.

Speaking at a conference of speakers of EU member states in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, Tajani said Le Pen’s goal of leaving the EU was a poor choice because “to remain in isolation is a bad solution”.

He said the EU needed improving “but that doesn’t mean to destroy it”.

Updated

La Rotonde criticism continues

It looks like that celebration by Macron at the Parisian brasserie La Rotonde may have been a misstep.

Unfavourable comparisons have been made with the victory party of Nicolas Sarkozy, who celebrated his 2007 presidential win in the chic Parisian restaurant Fouquet’s, which cemented his reputation as a “bling-bling” president.

Macron hit out at his detractors, saying he was celebrating to thank his staff: “If you haven’t understood that it’s my pleasure tonight to invite out my secretaries, my security guards, then you haven’t understood anything about life.”

The mayor of Lyon, Gérard Collomb, one of Macron’s first supporters, tweeted the menu of La Rotonde, pointing out that it “didn’t much resemble Fouquet’s”.

However as the publication Valeurs Actuelles pointed out, Collomb has not published the side of the menu that included a salad of French beans for €13.50 (£11.44) and a côte de bœuf for €79. As the publication put it: “Not very man in the street.”

Le Pen, who has hit the campaign trail hard this morning, has hoped to capitalise on the comparison. Speaking in Rouvroy in the Pas-de-Calais, she took aim at Macron: “Yes, it’s different from La Rotonde, isn’t it? But I am the candidate of the people.”

Le Pen takes aim at Macron over gathering at La Rotonde

The French TV presenter Stéphane Bern, who was at the gathering, defended Macron. “How can you compare Le Fouquet to La Rotonde,” he told l’Express. “For Emmanuel Macron, La Rotonde is a very symbolically important place: it was there that he had his first meeting for En Marche! It’s a place which is emblematic of all his battles and it’s not at all a luxury brasserie but a local brasserie. It’s nothing like the Champs-Elysées.”

The evening was conducted with “nothing but humility”, said the journalist. “He gathered his supporters, his family, his friends, his wife. There were radishes, peanuts and glasses of champagne. He reminded us that the fight was taking place now.”

Updated

The Spanish foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, has expressed his hope that Macron will win the second round of the French presidential election. He hopes a victory in the French presidential election for Emmanuel Macron would mark a break in the rise of extremist populist parties in Europe.

Speaking to Spain’s Cadena Ser radio, Dastis stressed the need for caution, but added that a win for Macron in the second round against Marine Le Pen would be “good news because his project for Europe is the closest to that of the Spanish government”.

Dastis said an eventual victory for Macron, together with recent Dutch election results, would confirm a move away from populist parties, but added that European countries “need to get their act together, need to re-examine and constantly improve the European project”.

Updated

Macron has apparently left his home, where he thanked supporters and signed autographs, and is expected to address journalists at the headquarters of En Marche shortly.

Latest opinion poll predicts Macron victory

An Opinionway poll this morning has centrist candidate Macron beating far-right candidate Le Pen in the second round by 61% to 39%.

Updated

No shock that Marine Le Pen is continuing her criticism of her rival today.

She tells the French people that Macron is not an outsider:

He is part of the old guard of French politics who are in one way or another responsible for where we are today.

Updated

More support for Macron from Germany. The German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has said it is important for France and Europe that the leader of En Marche! wins the French presidential runoff election.

Speaking in Amman, Jordan, Gabriel said:

It’s important for France because he has the courage and the strength to lead the country out of its lethargy.

He added a Macron victory would signal a “new beginning for Europe,” but said a win by Marine Le Pen would “push Europe deeper into crisis”.

Updated

Jewish groups express dismay at Le Pen's inclusion in second round

Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) has expressed its regret that the National Front leader Marine Le Pen has made the second round of the French presidential elections.

Moshe Kantor, the president of the EJC, said:

It is extremely regrettable that more than one in five French voters voted for Le Pen. We call on all democrats to rally together to prevent Madame Le Pen from winning in the second round, which would be a prize for extremism and intolerance and a dark day for France.

Especially on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), we are painfully aware, as Jews, of the history of those who cloak themselves in the mantle of democracy but whose agenda is divisive, racist and antisemitic. Le Pen has made comments against the historic record of the Holocaust, which makes her no less dangerous than her Holocaust-denying father who she has tried to hide, but whose agenda remains with her and her party.

Updated

Le Pen labels Macron "weak" in face of Islamist terrorism

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has launched a scathing attack against her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron, a day after the two were put through to a second round runoff on May 7, calling him “weak” in the face of Islamist terrorism.

“I’m on the ground to meet the French people to draw their attention to important subjects, including Islamist terrorism to which the least we can say Mr Macron is weak on,” Le Pen told reporters.

“Mr Macron has no project to protect the French people in the face of Islamist dangers,” she said, adding that the run-off with Macron was a referendum on “uncontrolled globalisation”.

Updated

Macron under fire after first round celebration

This from Angelique Chrisafis in Paris:

Macron came under fire for celebrating his first-round result with his staff, inner-circle and a few celebrity friends in a Paris brasserie, La Rotonde, on Sunday night. “One shouldn’t be partying when the far-right has reached the second round,” said one politician from the rightwing Les Républicains. The Front National accused Macron of premature triumphalism likening him to Nicolas Sarkozy who held a final-round celebrity party at a chic Champs-Elysées restaurant in 2007, sparking criticism over a “bling” style that clung to him for five years. “This party at La Rotonde is shameful in a political situation when the far-right is qualified for the second round,” tweeted David Cormand, the head of the green party, Europe Ecology Les Verts.

Macron’s team dismissed what they called a “pointless polemic.” Macron himself shot back: “If you haven’t understood that it’s my pleasure tonight to invite out my secretaries, my security guards, then you haven’t understood anything about life.”

Updated

European spokespeople back Macron

Alexander Lambsdorff, a German liberal lawmaker and a vice-president of the European parliament, has described Emmanuel Macron as a “French John F Kennedy” and says his first-round victory is good news for Europe.

On Germany’s ZDF television, he described independent centrist Macron’s far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, as “a nationalist… I know the woman from the European parliament, a very unpleasant person”.

He added that he hopes Macron “this independent, fresh French John F Kennedy, if you like, succeeds in setting policy with his ideas”.

Updated

Former French Manuel Valls has backed Macron and said the defeated Socialist Party is self-destructing and has to look to the future to rebuild.

Valls spoke to France-Inter radio this morning, a day after the Socialist Party was shut out of the French presidency for the first time since 2002.

The Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon drew just 6 percent of the vote, a terrible result for the party that has held power for the past five years.

“We are in a phase of decomposition, demolition, deconstruction,” said Valls.

Updated

Angela Merkel’s spokesman welcomes Macron’s first round success

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman has welcomed Emmanuel Macron’s success in the first round of France’s presidential election and wished him “all the best for the next two weeks.”

Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, wrote on Twitter late Sunday night: “Good that Emmanuel Macron was successful with his course for a strong EU + social market economy.”

Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, tweeted that “the result for Emmanuel Macron shows: France AND Europe can win together! The center is stronger than the populists think!”

Updated

Marine Le Pen and her party have started the day early - trying to reach out to disgruntled supporters of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

While voices on the left and right have endorsed Macron this morning, the defeated far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has pointedly refused to do the same.

Speaking on RTL radio Louis Aliot, the vice president of the National Front party who has been in a relationship with the leader of the Front National since 2010 (if you read French there’s more on him here), said Le Pen offers an alternative for anyone skeptical of the European Union and France’s role in it.

French presidential election: first round results in charts and maps

We have some super whizz-bang graphics to help you understand where Macron and Le Pen have the most support – and where they will be targeting in the next two weeks.

Updated

The president is elected by popular vote, but this map shows where each candidate won most support
The president is elected by popular vote, but this map shows where each candidate won most support

If you’re voting in the elections, we’d like to hear your thoughts on the first round of voting. What do you think of the final two candidates? Who are you hoping to win? And what issues will most influence your vote?

We’ll use a selection of responses in our reporting.

Updated

Apparently Macron is still asleep so he is expected to appear outside the headquarters of En Marche at at about midday. He was, by all accounts, celebrating with supporters until the early hours of the morning and then couldn’t get to sleep. One imagines he had quite a lot to think about.

Updated

French stock market surges

The French stock market has surged this morning, as investors welcome last night’s election results, writes my colleague Graeme Wearden.

The CAC 40, which contains the largest French companies, jumped by 4% at the start of trading to its highest level since April 2015. Bank shares are leading the rally, as fears of another eurozone crisis abate.

The euro, which hit a five-month high last night, is up around 1% this morning at $1.086.

Investors are relieved that Emmanuel Macron has qualified for the run-off on May 7th, where he is widely expected to win.

John Wyn-Evans, head of investment strategy at Investec Wealth & Investment, says Macron vs Le Pen was the market’s “preferred outcome”.

“Macron’s policies cleverly appeal to both sides of the political spectrum, and they are succinctly described by the Financial Times as a “business-friendly agenda coupled with Nordic-style welfarism”, encompassing, for example, labour market deregulation, lower corporation tax, and no social security contributions for those on the minimum wage,” Wyn-Evans explains.

Updated

Fillon comes under attack from The Republicans

The massacre of François Fillon - who spent a large part of the French presidential campaign beleaguered by scandal - is well underway.

It is the first time since 1958 that France’s main rightwing party has failed to make it to the second round.

Jean-Francois Cope, former head of the Union for a Popular Movement, which was renamed and succeeded by the Republicans in May 2015 pulled no punches in the wake of the defeat:

“It was said to be a fight which the right could not lose, and which has ended in a lamentable fiasco,” he said.

“The right has been swept away ... The right has just experienced its April 21,” he said, referencing April 21, 2002, when Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin was knocked out in the first round by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen.

This video from France 24 shows just some of Fillon’s former supporters taking the gloves off, and getting really stuck in. Here are a few quotes from Fillon’s former comrades in the Republicans:

Eric Woerth: “It’s not the right and the centre which lost, it was François Fillon who lost.”

Rachida Dati: “What a mess. All that to end up here [...] It’s also a moral and historic victory for the right. [...] The [Fillon affair] polluted the debate.”

Nadine Morano: “What has just happened is a real mess. François Fillon bears a significant responsibility.”

Renaud Muselier: “The right sincerely thank François Fillon for having sunk us.”

Updated

Has polling “got it’s mojo back”? The Economist gently boasts that each of the top four candidates matched The Economist’s polling average to within one percentage point. so what does that mean for the second round?

As our election forecast has made clear, these dispiriting run-off results have spelt doom for Ms Le Pen. Before the first election, we chanced her at 1%. That projection holds doubly since she has drawn Mr Macron as her run-off opponent (against Mr Fillon or Jean-Luc Mélenchon she still faced difficult 15-point climbs). Punters, who were giving Ms Le Pen’s chances of winning a stratospheric 35%, have since come down to Earth. At last check, her odds were trading at 13%.

The weight of the current polling points to one conclusion: the path to the Élysée is all but blocked for Ms Le Pen, barring, of course, the act of some vengeful deity. Has anyone checked in with Vladimir Putin lately?

Le Pen's surge in the countryside

To understand the reasons for Marine Le Pen’s surge of support in the French countryside, read this story and watch this Guardian film by Angelique Chrisafis and Tom Silverstone from La Nièvre in Burgundy. Le Pen topped the poll there on Sunday night.

Rift between ailing rural areas and faraway big cities is where the Front National leader looks set to make her biggest voter gains

Updated

This is interesting from Le Monde - a country divided.

The Guardian view on France’s election

The Guardian view on France’s election? A win for Macron and hope.

The storming of the Bastille in 1789 sets the bar high. As a result, few phrases should be used with more circumspection than “French revolution”. But the result of the first round of France’s 2017 presidential election is an epochal political upheaval for France all the same. For the first time in the nearly 60-year history of the Fifth Republic the second-round contest on 7 May will be between two outsider candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. Neither of the candidates of the established parties of left and right will be in the runoff. Whichever of the second-round candidates emerges as the winner in two weeks’ time, France is set upon a new political course, with major implications for itself and for the rest of Europe.

[...]

Before that, though, France faces an absolutely straight choice. The contest on 7 May is a contest between openness and bigotry, internationalism and nationalism, optimism and hatred, reaction and reform, hope and fear. The fact that Ms Le Pen has reached the second round should not be underplayed simply because it was predicted for so long, or because, if the exit polling is confirmed, she finished second behind Mr Macron, not first. She took almost a quarter of French votes. Her projected 21.9% is significantly larger than her father’s 16.9% in 2002. Even if she loses in round two, the FN may still stand on the verge of a historic advance in June’s parliamentary elections.

[...]

Now France must stand up again in two weeks’ time and complete the job by electing Mr Macron. There are only two in this race and French voters should do what they did in 2002 and rally to defeat the FN candidate on 7 May. Already, several on the centre-right have rallied behind Mr Macron. Others should follow, and so should leftwing voters too.

Updated

Independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and National Front leader Marine Le Pen are through to the second round

Updated

Jon Henley has also written this excellent guide to the two candidates:

Updated

So we know it will be Macron and Le Pen in the second round - but what happens next. Here is the Guardian’s useful primer for the next two weeks.

The challenge facing Le Pen

My colleague Angelique Chrisafis has just filed this dispatch from Paris about the achievement of Le Pen – and the challenges she now faces.

The far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s place in the second-round of the French presidential election cements her Front National party’s steady rise and growing presence on the country’s political landscape.

Le Pen took the highest score her party has ever registered in a French presidential election, but while her father Jean-Marie Le Pen sparked a political earthquake 15 years ago by reaching the final round, this time there was little surprise.

Polls had predicted for months that her popularity was growing among an electorate that was disillusioned and angry at the political class and keen to send the harshest political message that it was time for change.

“This result is historic,” she told supporters on Sunday night. “It puts on me a huge responsibility to defend the French nation, its unity, its security, its culture, its prosperity and its independence. The main thing at stake in this election is the rampant globalisation that is endangering our civilisation.”

But Le Pen enters the next two weeks of final-round campaigning as the underdog. All polls suggest that tactical voters from left and right will join together against her – as they did in the regional elections of 2015 – and make her chances of winning on 7 May slim.

This paragraph is key:

The presidential race is not the only key election for Le Pen. Crucial for the party are the parliamentary elections in June. The Front National has only two out of 577 MPs and need at least 15 MPs to form a political group in parliament, but they believe this is now within reach.

Updated

Opening summary

Hello, and welcome to the second day of our live coverage of the French presidential election. Here is what we know as France wakes up on Monday morning:

    • The first round result is an epochal political upheaval for France. For the first time in the nearly 60-year history of the Fifth Republic, neither of the candidates of the established parties of left and right will be in the runoff.

Either we continue on the path to complete deregulation, or you choose France. You now have the chance to choose real change. This is what I propose: real change. It is time to liberate the French nation from arrogant elites who want to dictate how it must behave. Because yes, I am the candidate of the people.

    • Macron said that in the space of a year, since founding his En Marche! movement, it had “changed the face of French politics” and asked for a big victory for a large governing majority:

I want to construct a majority to govern and to transform, of new talents, in which all will have their place. I will not ask where they come from, but whether they agree with the renewal of our politics, the security of the French people, reforming society and relaunching the European project.

You are the face of this renewal. My fellow citizens, there is not more than one France. There is only one, ours, the France of patriots, in a Europe that protects and that we must reform. The task is immense, but I am ready, at your sides. Vive la République, vive la France.

Updated

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