election as French president.
The ceremony
in Paris later on Monday marks the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi
Germany in 1945. It comes less than 24 hours after the independent centrist
declared he had beaten the present day forces of extremism in the shape of his
far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen.
Polls had
predicted a comfortable win for the 39-year-old ex-banker for months, but
investors and European leaders had watched on anxiously as the election
campaign lurched from one surprise and scandal to another, fretting over the
possibility the anti-globalization, anti-EU Le Pen could pull off an upset.
However,
Macron prevailed with 66 percent of the vote to become France's youngest leader
since Napoleon. Asian markets sent the euro to a six-month high against the
dollar in the early hours after the result became clear, Asian shares gained
and U.S. stock futures briefly touched a record high.
"Political
risk in Europe has been considered as a major market theme this year. But in
the Netherlands (anti-EU party leader Geert) Wilders lost in March. The French
election is now out of the way," said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment
strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.
"And in
Germany the ruling Christian Democrats are recovering. The political risks in
Europe have receded," he said.
Macron's
victory also smashed the dominance of France’s mainstream parties. Even though
he is an unknown quantity to some extent, the win brought huge relief to
European allies who had feared another anti-globalization electoral result to
follow Britain's vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump's election as U.S.
president.
It was still
a record performance for the National Front, whose anti-immigrant policies once
made it a pariah, and underlined the scale of the divisions that Macron must
now try to heal.
Macron had
been accused of behaving as if he was already president after winning the first
round two weeks ago. On Sunday night, with victory finally sealed, he was much
more solemn.
"I know
the divisions in our nation, which have led some to vote for the extremes. I
respect them," Macron said in an address at his campaign headquarters,
shown live on television.
"I know
the anger, the anxiety, the doubts that very many of you have also expressed.
It's my responsibility to hear them," he said. "I will work to
recreate the link between Europe and its peoples, between Europe and
citizens."
He later
strode alone almost grimly through the courtyard of the Louvre Palace in
central Paris to the strains of the EU anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, not
breaking into a smile until he mounted the stage of his victory rally to the
cheers of his partying supporters.
His
immediate challenge will be to secure a majority in next month's parliamentary
election for a political movement that is barely a year old, rebranded as La
Republique En Marche ("Onward the Republic"), in order to implement
his program.
EUROPE
DEFENDED
Outgoing
president Francois Hollande, who brought Macron into politics and will lead
Monday's ceremony, said the result "confirms that a very large majority of
our fellow citizens wanted to unite around the values of the Republic and show
their attachment to the European Union".
Jean-Claude
Juncker, president of the European Commission, told Macron: "I am
delighted that the ideas you defended of a strong and progressive Europe, which
protects all its citizens, will be those that you will carry into your presidency."
Macron spoke
by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he hopes to revitalise
the Franco-German axis at the heart of the EU, saying he planned to visit
Berlin shortly.
Trump
tweeted his congratulations on Macron's "big win", saying he looked
forward to working with him. Chinese President Xi Jinping said China was
willing to help push Sino-French ties to a higher level.
Japan's
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also congratulated Macron.
A
39-year-old former investment banker, Macron served for two years as economy
minister under Hollande but has never previously held elected office.
Le Pen, 48,
said she had also offered her congratulations. But she defiantly claimed the
mantle of France's main opposition in calling on "all patriots to join
us" in constituting a "new political force".
Her tally
was almost double the score that her father Jean-Marie, the last far-right
candidate to make the presidential runoff, achieved in 2002, when he was
trounced by the conservative Jacques Chirac.
Her
high-spending, anti-globalization "France-first" policies may have
unnerved financial markets but they appealed to many poorer members of society
against a background of high unemployment, social tensions and security
concerns.
RESHAPING
THE LANDSCAPE
Despite
having served briefly in Hollande's deeply unpopular Socialist government,
Macron managed to portray himself as the man to revive France's fortunes by
recasting a political landscape moulded by the left-right divisions of the past
century.
"I've
liked his youth and his vision from the start," said Katia Dieudonné, a
35-year-old immigrant from Haiti who brought her two children to Macron's
victory rally.
"He
stands for the change I've wanted since I arrived in France in 1985 - openness,
diversity, without stigmatizing anyone ... I've voted for the left in the past
and been disappointed."
Macron's
team successfully skirted several attempts to derail his campaign - by hacking
its communications and distributing purportedly leaked documents - that were
reminiscent of the hacking of Democratic Party communications during Hillary
Clinton's U.S. election campaign.
While Macron
sees France's way forward in boosting the competitiveness of an open economy,
Le Pen wanted to shield French workers by closing borders, quitting the EU's
common currency, the euro, radically loosening the bloc and scrapping trade
deals.
Macron will
become the eighth president of France's Fifth Republic when he moves into the
Elysee Palace after his inauguration next weekend.
Opinion
surveys taken before the second round suggested that his fledgling movement had
a fighting chance of securing the majority he needed.
He plans to
blend a big reduction in public spending and a relaxation of labor laws with
greater investment in training and a gradual reform of the unwieldy pension
system.
A European
integrationist and pro-NATO, he is orthodox in foreign and defense policy and
shows no sign of wishing to change France's traditional alliances or reshape
its military and peacekeeping roles in the Middle East and Africa.
NEW
GENERATION
His election
also represents a long-awaited generational change in French politics that have
been dominated by the same faces for years.
He will be
the youngest leader in the current Group of Seven major nations and has
elicited comparisons with youthful leaders past and present, from Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to British ex-premier Tony Blair and even the
late U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
But any idea
of a brave new political dawn will be tempered by an abstention rate on Sunday
of around 25 percent, the highest this century, and by a record share of blank
or spoiled ballots by more than 11 percent of those who did vote.
Like Macron,
Le Pen will now have to work to try to convert her presidential result into
parliamentary seats, in a two-round system that has in the past encouraged
voters to cast ballots tactically to keep her out.
She has
worked for years to soften the xenophobic associations that clung to the
National Front under her father, going so far as to expel him from the party he
founded.
On Sunday
night, her deputy Florian Philippot distanced the movement even further from
him by saying the new, reconstituted party would not be called "National
Front".
*REUTERS*
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