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France voted on Sunday in the first round of presidential election which has overturned the country’s traditional politics. The poll took place amid high security, with 50,000 police officers deployed throughout the country. France declared a state of emergency in 2015 following deadly terrorist attacks.
It’s not the security concern that makes this year’s election so different from other presidential elections in the country. Rather, it’s the outcome of the election that has made it so radically different. It’s the first time in modern French political history that both establishment parties have been eliminated in the first round. The victorious pair represents the two radically different visions of the country’s future.
Emmanuel Macron, a centrist and a first time candidate and political independent, and Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist and leader of National Front, won the first round of the presidential election with 23.8 percent and 21.5 percent votes respectively. A snap poll suggests Macron would defeat Le Pen by more than 20 percentage points in the second round. The Republican Francois Fillon came third with a projected 19.9 percent, while Socialist Benoit Hamon trailed in fifth place with just 6.4 percent. Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon was at 19.6 percent and refused to concede.
Macron is a liberal technocrat who worked as an investment banker before entering politics. He mounted an unprecedented independent candidacy that was initially written off. Le Pen has spent her life steeped in the far-right politics of her father, Jean-Marie, who founded the National Front. A lawyer, she has spent much of her career tarrying to steer the party towards the mainstream, away from its racist and anti-Semitic roots.
The two front runners for the second round now have two weeks to show voters that they are ready to take the helm of France. Le Pen, whose political fortune made a remarkable turnaround with anti-immigrant rhetoric, plans to cut legal immigration in France to 10,000 people a year, put a tax on foreign workers and regain border controls. She also wants France out of euro, and to take control of the central bank. As a president she would re-negotiate France’s status in the EU and hold a referendum on reintroducing the franc.
By contrast, Macron, a committed globalist, wants to bring in a new era of European cooperation. He aims to simplify French labor law to boost economic growth and step up public investment in training and education. The result of the first round is a stinging rebuke for the traditional parties in France, which is buffeted by years of sub-par economic growth, high unemployment, and suffered a series of terror attacks.
In what can be seen as a clear call for change, French voters are now putting their faith in unusual candidates, Macron and Le Pen. The next two weeks will test the appeal of both candidates’ stances, above all on the economy, Europe and security. Whoever wins, which will be political watershed for France, will shape the country’s and European politics and policies for years to come.