French President, Emmanuel Macron, was on Sunday re-elected for a second 5-year term.
With more than three-quarters of the votes counted, Macron was leading 55% to 45% for Le Pen. The winning margin was well above 10 points, although smaller than when they first faced off in 2017.
The win makes Macron the first French president in 20 years to win re-election since incumbent Jacques Chirac trounced Le Pen’s father in 2002.
Le Pen called her results “a shining victory,” saying that “in this defeat, I can’t help but feel a form of hope.”
Breaking through the threshold of 40% of the vote is unprecedented for the French far-right. Le Pen was beaten 66% to 34% by Macron in 2017 and her father got less than 20% against Chirac.
She and hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, one of 10 candidates eliminated in the first round on April 10, both quickly pitched forward Sunday night to France’s legislative election in June, urging voters to give them a parliamentary majority to hamstring Macron.
Le Pen’s score this time rewarded her years-long efforts to make her far-right politics more palatable to voters. Campaigning hard on cost-of-living issues, she made deep inroads among blue-collar voters in disaffected rural communities and former industrial centers.
Macron went into the vote with a sizeable lead in polls but faced a fractured, anxious and tired electorate. The war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic battered Macron’s first term, as did months of violent protests against his economic policies.
Appealing to working-class voters struggling with surging prices, Le Pen vowed that bringing down the cost of living would be her priority and argued that Macron’s presidency had left the country deeply divided.
Macron sought to appeal to voters of immigrant heritage and religious minorities, especially because of Le Pen’s proposed policies targeting Muslims and putting French citizens first in line for jobs and benefits.
He also touted his environmental and climate accomplishments, hoping to draw in young voters who had backed left-wing candidates in the first round of voting.