{"id":34413,"date":"2017-05-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/emmanuel-macron-french-president-elect-to-fight\/"},"modified":"2017-05-09T13:19:18","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T13:19:18","slug":"emmanuel-macron-french-president-elect-to-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/emmanuel-macron-french-president-elect-to-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Macron: French president-elect to fight ‘forces of division’"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Emmanuel Macron has vowed to fight “the forces of division that undermine France” after easily winning the run-off election for the French presidency.}<\/p>\n

The centrist candidate, 39, defeated the far right’s Marine Le Pen, winning 66.06% of the vote to her 33.94%.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging his victory, Mr Macron told supporters he wanted to ensure Le Pen voters “no longer have a reason to vote for an extremist position”.<\/p>\n

There has been a palpable sense of relief among European leaders.<\/p>\n

Mr Macron was elected on a passionately pro-European Union platform, while Ms Le Pen by contrast threatened to pull out of the single currency and hold an in\/out referendum on France’s membership of the EU.<\/p>\n

{{What did Mr Macron say?}}<\/p>\n

In a speech to jubilant supporters, Mr Macron said: “Tonight you won, France won. Everyone told us it was impossible, but they don’t know France.”<\/p>\n

At 39, he is France’s youngest president. His win overturns the decades-long dominance of France’s two main political parties.<\/p>\n

But huge challenges remain, with a third of the electorate choosing Ms Le Pen and even more abstaining or casting a blank ballot.<\/p>\n

Mr Macron said he had heard “the rage, anxiety and doubt that a lot of you have expressed”, vowing to spend his five years in office “fighting the forces of division that undermine France”.<\/p>\n

{{Where does this leave Ms Le Pen?}}<\/p>\n

Ms Le Pen won almost double the tally her father Jean-Marie won in 2002, the last time a far right candidate made the French presidential run-off.<\/p>\n

Although she performed worse than final polls had indicated, her anti-globalisation, anti-immigrant, high-spending manifesto attracted an estimated 11 million votes.<\/p>\n

She said the election had shown a division between “patriots and globalists” and called for the emergence of a new political force.<\/p>\n

Ms Le Pen said her National Front party needed to renew itself and that she would start the “deep transformation of our movement”, vowing to lead it into parliamentary elections next month.<\/p>\n

{{What has the international reaction been?}}<\/p>\n

Most of those running the EU were breathing a sigh of relief, given Ms Le Pen’s policies and last year’s Brexit vote.<\/p>\n

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker tweeted: “Happy that the French chose a European future.”<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel tweeted her congratulations, saying Mr Macron’s win was a “victory for a strong united Europe”.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump, who has previously praised Ms Le Pen, tweeted his congratulations to Mr Macron for the “big win” and said he looked forward to working with him.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Macron has won the presidency. He now needs to win over the French people.<\/p>\n

Many of those who voted for him did so to stop Marine Le Pen. They remain to be convinced by his political programme, unlike Brussels, which is delighted.<\/p>\n

EU leaders believe Marine Le Pen’s defeat is a strong sign that Eurosceptic nationalism is now ebbing.<\/p>\n

But while far right populists have been defeated in Austria, the Netherlands and France, the barbed issues that drove voters to them – unemployment, immigration and fear of globalisation – remain to be resolved.<\/p>\n

France’s deep political divisions will become evident once again in the lead-up to parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

The question remains: Will Emmanuel Macron, inexperienced in politics and with his fledgling party be able to form the credible government needed to pass the reforms he promises?<\/p>\n

{{What challenges lie ahead for Mr Macron?}}<\/p>\n

With parliamentary elections in June, he will be campaigning on behalf of his new movement En Marche to get the seats he needs to pursue his legislative agenda.<\/p>\n

The grouping, founded just over a year ago, does not yet have a presence in parliament. If he cannot gain a majority he may have to form a coalition.<\/p>\n

His campaign pledges included a 120,000 reduction in public-sector jobs, a cut in public spending by \u20ac60bn (\u00a350bn; $65bn), and a lowering of the unemployment rate to below 7%.<\/p>\n

He vowed to ease labour laws and give new protections to the self-employed.<\/p>\n

\"Mr<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Emmanuel Macron has vowed to fight “the forces of division that undermine France” after easily winning the run-off election for the French presidency.} The centrist candidate, 39, defeated the far right’s Marine Le Pen, winning 66.06% of the vote to her 33.94%. Acknowledging his victory, Mr Macron told supporters he wanted to ensure Le Pen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34413"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34413"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}