Macron and Le Pen advance to the second round of the French election

AFTER the most volatile and closely run campaign in recent history, the French first-round vote has yielded an extraordinary outcome, putting two party outsiders into the final round of the country’s presidential election. According to estimates by Ipsos, a pollster, for France 2 Télévisions based on a sample of polling-station results, Emmanuel Macron, a pro-European centrist independent, came first with 23.7%. Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front (FN) followed with 21.9%. The pair will go through to a run-off vote on May 7th.

This result means that for the first time in modern French history, the second round will not include a candidate from either of the two political families—the Socialists and the Republicans—that have held the presidency since the Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. François Fillon, a former prime minister and the Republicans’ beleaguered candidate, came third, with 19.7% of the vote, closely trailed by the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 19.2%, who failed to sustain a late surge during the closing weeks of the campaign.