Outgoing President Emmanuel Macron won his bet by finishing first in the first round of the French presidential election. He will face Marine Le Pen in the second round on April 24.
At Emmanuel Macron’s HQ, Porte de Versailles in Paris, the results of the first round of the presidential election were greeted with satisfaction and relief. According to the latest estimates, the outgoing president is ahead of the National Rally candidate with 27.4% of the vote against 24.9%. ” And one, and two, and five more years ! “, are already chanting his supporters.
The president-candidate is in the lead, but without much reserve of votes. So Emmanuel Macron warns. ” Make no mistake, nothing is settled. And the debate that we will have in the next fortnight is decisive for our country and for Europe “, he launches. After having applauded all his eliminated opponents, he therefore extends his hand to all the voters. ” I solemnly invite all our fellow citizens, whatever their feelings and whatever their choice was in the first round, to join us. »
“The campaign must go to the left”
For this activist interviewed by our special correspondent Anthony Latier, there is an urgent need to address voters on the left. ” Now the campaign must go to the left to recover these famous voices. There were too many openings on the right which in my opinion made it a little lacking “, he analyzes.
Socialist Anne Hidalgo, environmentalist Yannick Jadot and communist Fabien Roussel all three called for Emmanuel Macron to vote on April 24 to block Marine Le Pen. In the meantime, the strategy of the president-candidate is clear. It consists of dismantling the political project of the far-right candidate.
” It’s not a question of demonization, explains the Minister of Transformation and Public Service Amélie de Montchalin. Our fight for the next fifteen days is to show precisely that if this program were applied, it would in fact provide no answer to the questions that the French are asking themselves. »
Convince the voters, convince the abstainers, because the macronists say it: calls for the dam are no longer enough. However, the second round promises to be tighter than that of 2017 which, already, had opposed Emmanuel Macron to Marine Le Pen. He won with 66% of the votes. This time, the polls give him the winner with 51 to 54% of the vote.
► Read also: Presidential 2022: a second Macron-Le Pen duel very different from the first