Macron Beats French Far-right Leader Le Pen To Win Second Term As President
Emmanuel Macron was elected to a second term as French president on Sunday evening with 58.8% of the vote, according to an estimate from the Ipsos polling institute.
His far-right challenger Marine Le Pen won 41.2% of the vote in an election that saw the country’s highest abstention rate in 50 years.
Emmanuel Macron, 44, won 58.8% of the vote in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday 24 April, against 41.2% for Marine Le Pen, 53, according to estimates from the Ipsos polling institute.
Le Pen described her defeat as a “striking victory” and said she was launching a “great battle” for the June parliamentary polls.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round, said Le Pen’s defeat was “very good news for the unity of our people” while stressing that Macron was “the most badly elected president of the Fifth Republic”.
The abstention rate was put at 28.2% by Ipsos, up 1.9 points from the first round and 2.7 points from the second round in 2017.