The pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidency in a decisive victory over the far-right Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, and vowed to unite a divided and fractured France.
Macron, 39, a former economy minister who ran as a “neither left nor right” independent promising to shake up the French political system, took 65.1% to Le Pen’s 34.9%, according to initial projections from early counts.
His victory was hailed by his supporters as holding back a tide of populism after the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the US election.
Addressing thousands of supporters in the grand courtyard of the Louvre, the vast Paris palace-turned-museum, Macron said he would defend France and Europe. He said Europe and the world are “watching us” and “waiting for us to defend the spirit of the Enlightenment, threatened in so many places”.
He promised to unite a divided and fractured France, saying: “I will do everything to make sure you never have reason again to vote for extremes.”
DID You KNOW THAT: Macron is married to Brigitte Trogneux, 24 years his senior, who was his teacher in La Providence High School in Amiens. They first met when he was a 15-year-old student in her class, and she was 39 but were officially a couple only after he turned 17. His parents initially attempted to separate the couple by sending him away to Paris to finish the final year of his schooling, as they felt his youth made this relationship inappropriate, but the couple stayed together after he graduated, and they married in 2007. Macron has three step-children, Sébastien (born 1975), Laurence (born 1977), and Tiphaine (born 1984)
Source: The Guardian, Google