Rabat – French President Emmanuel Macron is set to face far right candidate Marine LePen in the presidential run-off election on April 24.
Macron came away from Sunday’s first round of the elections with about 27% of the vote, followed by LePen who secured 23% of the vote, according to final figures from the Ministry of Interior.
“For the first time in this campaign, it felt like Macron was campaigning not as a President but as a candidate seeking a second term,” Georgina Wright, an analyst from the think-tank Institut Montaigne said following the vote.
“But [the] race will be [very] tight – and he will need to convince [people] to get out & vote on 24 April,” she added.
Macron has called on French citizens to unite against the far-right candidate Marine LePen.
“The debate that we are going to have over the next fortnight will be decisive for our country and Europe,” he said during a speech to supporters after the results were announced.
Other candidates that did not make the final two, such as Valérie Pécresse and Yannick Jadot, called on voters to back Macron.
Leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melanchon did not call for people to vote for Macron but did urge supporters to not cast votes in favor of LePen.
The candidate from La France Insoumise said the vote’s results confirm the need for changes in the system that currently forces people to “choose the lesser evil,” and assured his supporters that “the fight will go on.”
Eric Zemmour, the nation’s other prominent far-right candidate endorsed LePen in his concession speech, being the only losing candidate to call on his base to vote for her.
“French people are now faced with two opposing visions of the future,” said Le Pen after the first round of votes.
“One of disorder and injustice that Macron has brought about for the profit of some, and one of unification of French people around social justice,” she added.
Recent polls indicate that French voters are becoming less and less happy with Macron’s policies. His firm stance against Russia in the ongoing Ukraine crisis, polarized French people with mixed reactions throughout the nation.
LePen took advantage of this in her campaign, calling attention to his involvement in the conflict, at the cost of the quality of day-to-day life for the French people.
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The decision of who will take the presidential seat in France next is expected to affect not only the country but Europe as a whole, as the region is still in the midst of dealing with the Russia-Ukraine war.
Western experts and analysts from outside France are anticipating the results, as LePen’s stance on the EU and France’s involvement in geopolitical issues could be fatal to the ongoing alliance against Russia.
“An anti-NATO and more pro-Russia France in the event of an ultimate Le Pen victory would cause deep concern in allied capitals, and could fracture the united trans-Atlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” New York Times’ author Roger Cohen wrote.
