I’m so jealous that French people get to vote on Sundays! That alone is amazing, imagine holding elections on weekends. That being said, I’m not entirely sure about the whole “run-off election” thing. Weeks ago, President Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen got the most votes in the French general election. Sunday was the runoff election with only Le Pen and Macron on the ballot. People were worried! Le Pen has been a rabid right-wing figure in French and European politics for so many years. She has been one of those political figures trying to make nationalism, racism, bigotry and anti-immigration into more mainstream political beliefs and more palatable to a wider swath of French people. This weekend, she got her ass kicked.
French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won reelection to a second term Sunday. The results brought relief to allies that the nuclear-armed power won’t abruptly shift course in the midst of the war in Ukraine from European Union and NATO efforts to punish and contain Russia’s military expansionism.
The second five-year term for the 44-year-old centrist spared France and Europe from the seismic upheaval of having firebrand populist Marine Le Pen at the helm, Macron’s presidential runoff challenger who quickly conceded defeat but was still on course for her best-ever electoral showing.
Acknowledging that “numerous” voters cast ballots for him simply to keep out the fiercely nationalist far-right Le Pen, Macron pledged to reunite the country that is “filled with so many doubts, so many divisions” and work to assuage the anger of French voters that fed Le Pen’s campaign.
“No one will be left by the side of the road,” Macron said in a victory speech against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower and a projection of the blue-white-and-red tricolor French flag. He was cheered by several hundred supporters who happily waved French and EU flags.
Macron is now the first man to win re-election and serve more than one term since Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand. People keep talking about how French voters were mostly ambivalent about Macron in general, but they still came out to vote for him because no one wanted to see Le Pen empowered. This election was obviously incredibly important within the EU, especially given the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Macron’s role as one of Europe’s most important diplomats (he still keeps an open line of communication with Putin). While all of this is good news, does anyone think that Brigitte Macron looked a little bit stunned? I don’t think she was ready to serve a second term as France’s First Lady.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799159, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799171, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799341, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799356, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799481, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
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- Victory speech by Emmanuel Macron – Candidate in March for his own re-election to the presidential elections of 2022,Image: 685799514, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: JB Autissier / Panoramic / Avalon
I do want to add that five years ago, Macron won with 66,9% of the votes, while Le Pen got 33,1%, so she gained a lot more votes this time around…
*cups hands over my eyes* LALALALALALA
Came here to say just this. She made significant gains this time – it is by no means a total loss for her or her party.
Yes, I posted this below before I saw your post. This wasn’t an easy win – Macron came into the run-off only 5 point ahead.
Fifty-eight percent is good, but I’m not sure I’d call it a landslide.
She got more votes but he’s very unpopular in France and lots of protests against this second round- people didnt want either of them.
One could argue this was Le Pen’s now or never moment and she was still unelectable.
This. This is a horrible result in this election. She and her racist, xenophobic right wing party gained 10+ percentage points. And she handily won the territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion by huge percentages.
*gasp* I’ve been to Martinique and was in love with it, on par with the south of France.
I still can’t get over the fact that Ms. Macron was his teacher before they got together. Or was she still his teacher …
I had no idea about this until your comment and went down the Google rabbit hole.
They allegedly only got together when he was 18, yet his parents sent him away for his last year of school to keep him away from her….so, sounds like they got together before he graduated. Gross.
There are variations to the story – he was 15 and she was 39, but supposedly they didn’t get together until he turned 18. But his family sent him away for his last year of high school to break up the relationship, so that sounds like they were together before he was 18.
It’s fuzzy. They say they didn’t start a relationship until he was 18 but it was clear his attraction to her was enough of a problem that his parents sent him away to finish high school in Paris for his final year. They got together when he came back and she divorced her first husband to be with him. Brigitte’s first husband never came an interview to the press so we’ll never know his feelings about it and he died very quietly recently. The media only learned about it because Brigitte mentioned it in an interview to the press.
I always got Mary Kay Letourno vibes from her. There is no doubt she groomed and him. Allegedly when his parents sent him to Paris to get away from her she continued to stay contact with him and then tried to say he was the one chasing her. There has been a lot of whitewashing of their relationship.
Congrats to him but this is not the end for Le Pen, she is gaining support and sadly I can see her winning at some point. I have French colleagues who r saying at France is heading down the same route as the U.K. and there is a lot of unhappiness with the EU.
I live in the UK and Brexit is such an unmitigated disaster that it should be on all papers abroad (here we cannot even say the B word thanks to the Johnson government!) to discourage others from follow suit.
I’m a migrant and I’m off to my native country in 1 week, it’s like I’ve gone back 30 years in time, I’m travelling down with 2 empty suitcases that will be full to the brim of stuff I cannot get in UK.
Brexits s**ks.
Thank god. I’m going to focus on the strength of Macron’s victory and ignore the strength of Le Pen’s voter turnout. *resumes ignoring*
Honestly, Brigitte looks stoned to me, but she and I are “of an age” so I don’t blame her. That’s a rough environment to be First Lady.
I wish I was good at making up captions for photos! Lol. The look on Ms. Macron face is priceless!
Bridgette Macron always looks a bit like, “how did I find myself here?” I don’t think she’s been a bad First Lady (at least not to the point where it makes international news) but when you start an affair with a charismatic 16 year old pupil, you don’t expect to be serving as his First Lady 20 years later you know?
Like it’s always a lot whenever I’m reminded of who he is married to, even though I like him quite a bit.
Thank God!! Now we just need the UK to do something about Boris though Im not confident at all that he would lose if there was an election today.
Even if we could get rid of our entire government, we still have the Brexit issue hanging upon us for life, there’s no way back unfortunately.
Of course she doesn’t want to be First Lady again, she is a pensioners age and should be enjoying retirement 😀.
She groomed this dude and I hope she gets everything she deserves and more.
I remember saying to myself a month ago when the invasion started that it was going to save Macron’s presidential career.
Le Nazi changed up her image and softened it and it worked. She increased her numbers by 10 points. She is gonna try again and sadly, it will be successful.
totally agree with on you on your take of Macron-Le Pen. in what hell timeline are we living in?😓
I watched interviews on PBS (thru YouTube) and the reporter flat out said “A number of voters said they held their noses when voting for Macron” and one older woman said she voted for him not because she wanted him back in, but because “the country doesn’t want a donald trump and all the chaos that came with him.” I was all “I heard THAT!!!”
The thing is that it’s been like this for most elections for 20 years now: ever since Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to get to the 2nd round against Chirac (with around 45% of electors going to vote in the 1st round), the French go vote for the person that isn’t a Le Pen. And most of the past Présidents, sadly, Mitterand included, should have finished in jail. It doesn’t help reduce cynicism or make people want to vote. At least Macron acknowledged that many didn’t vote for him and voted against Marine, but we’ll have to see next month what the législatives brings
I voted this weekend as well, as a French citizen in the US. They had a few different polling locations set up across NYC (there is a French consulate located there) and the tri-state area so we voted on Saturday, the day before the election due to the time difference so that our votes were counted before polls closed Sunday evening. I obviously voted for Macron but I didn’t vote for him (or Le Pen) in the first round.
While I’m glad Macron won, Le Pen didn’t exactly get “her ass kicked” like she did 5 years ago. She got about 34% of the vote in 2017, this time she nearly got 42%. Voter abstention was at 28%, the highest it’s been in 50 years. And then of course you have all the people who cast blank votes (either an empty ballot envelope or a white paper in the envelope with no name on it). Macron won’t be around in 5 years to keep Le Pen away from the presidency and she may likely win in 2027. And she did far better in the debate this time around and clearly had a lot of coaching and prep and learned from 2017’s debate disaster (from what I’ve read she’s never watched a recording of the 2017 debate because she was so traumatized by her performance). Macron still “won” the debate because he is far more knowledgeable and showed it but Le Pen got huge credit for being less aggressive and appearing better prepared. It also didn’t help Macron appeared very condescending and bored for about the first hour of the debate–the biggest complaint French people have against him is that he’s arrogant and condescending and thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. Anyways it’s been interesting seeing the world so invested in this election, the most discussions I’ve had with my fellow Americans who have been very invested in my vote. (I’m a dual citizen and born and raised in the US if it matters).
Totalement d’accord avec ton analyse
As a fellow dual citizen who also voted this weekend, although I am happy with the outcome, I do think this is a festering problem.
Also, came here to add that I like the two voting rounds. It allows people to vote their conscience in the first round (and therefore fostering away from the two-party system that we have in the US – which is very polarizing) while giving people an opportunity to vote for the less of two evils in the second round. Often in politics we don’t get what we want and comes down to what we want least.
To add to what has been said before, we still have the regional elections which do not bode well for Mr Macron and are looking good for Ms Nazi’s party.
Things are not looking good for 2027.
I meant the « législatives », which means the parliament, next June.
I voted for him cause I don’t like Marine le pen….but I don’t like him also but do I have a choice? I am a black woman living in France…I don’t like his elitism,his smugness and he blew up the socialist party and the right party who was moderate now he opened the way for Marine and her minions.Marine has her right man who is much worse than her and let’s not talk about her niece,Marion…. I don’t know what will happen in 5 years and I’m mad that she made 42%,I find this way too high!!
The nyt has a map that breaks down the vote totals by region. Le Pen lost some areas by barely one thousand votes. That includes Nice. Had no idea that area was so conservative.
Nice has always be known as a racist city:their representatives are all on the far right…and they hate immigrants (that’s where immigrants were coming in France by leaving Italy and go to Calais for Britain)
Nice being extremely xenophobic has unfortunately been my experience as well. I’ve been to several French towns, but I’ve never experienced this level of disdain towards foreigners like in Nice outside the tourist areas. And I only have a slight accent when I speak French, but once detected by some, I could immediately see the change in facial expression and treatment.
I’m really you experienced that.Nice and the south of France in general is known for its xenophobia.It’s a really beautiful place but full of rich racist and xenophobic ppl.They always vote en masse for the far right.
Thank you @Brielle. You’re right, the scenery in the south is absolutely beautiful. To me, Montpellier war actually much better, even though it has its problems as well. But Nice was just another matter altogether, I don’t think I will ever want to go back there.
What never ceased to amaze me is that politicians all over the Western globe are not thinking about why the last decades a big bunch of people are buying the right wing extremists rethorics What about try to do some kind of self criticism AND ,of course, try to fix problems instead of looking upon us from their sheltered worlds.
Regular people are asking for solutions and urging them for votes just to not let the extremists win is not going to work forever.
That’s worries me the most:the far right is so dominant in Europe and what worries me the most is that ppl who I frequent are so radical in their views(mostly coworkers,mum friends..) that I’m stressed…
Yes he won, but I wouldn’t call it a comfortable win at all. He’s actually losing ground.
He is so out of touch:I don’t like him at all but do we have a choice?
That’s the main problem (In France but also in some other countries as well) One day most people will be fed up and try “The other choice” and that will be because of their inability to approach regular people, their voters
You are so right:I was appalled and saddened to see some of my friends ,who lean left like me,didn’t vote in the second round.I think they are protected by their skin color but also fed up with Macron
I hope you don’t end up like the racist party we have in the UK, they’re passing a law that states that asylum seekers will be shipped to Rwanda….
I agree with Cinders, it was far from a landslide win…and we can also say he can thank a lot of French expats.
He’s far from being that popular here but of course, we decided to suffer 5 more years, it’s “less worse” than MLP.
MLP didn’t get her ass kicked and I really hope Macron will get his kicked during the next legislative elections. That could be intereting because of the score JLM got too… So maybe Macron will cool off with the “retraites” and other things he passed without asking anyone except his friends…
I’m an NPR supporter. But calling her a “firebrand populist” is hideously Orwellian.
Really? I thought it was fairly mild considering she is very extreme in her policies, indeed some would say, all the Le Pens (Les Pens?) are totalitarian, authoritarian, and play to the worst xenophobic impulses of a supposedly free nation by inciting violence through fomenting racial resentments. Firebrand populist was too much though?
She’s a Putin stooge so I think that was quite mild 😉
Le Pen got 41.5% of the vote, and that’s chilling. People should look at what we had in Trump. If you get someone like that, they may not leave the office, ever. They don’t believe in democracy..
So glad HE won! Thank you from America!
This Canadian is also very happy with this win. I was afraid that had she won, a lot of Muslim women were going to be in danger. Imagine a leader that looks forward to sowing chaos.
Hijabis are in danger in France right now even if Macron has won. Macron endorse a lot of laws against the muslim community . He’s just more subltle about it. The Interior Minister, Gerard Darmanin, made a public statement during an exchange with Marine Lepen and said to her that she wasn’t tough enough against the muslim community ! secondly, Macron made sure that the far right grows during the years in office to make sure he will be reelected . It work. Don’t be fooled , the far right has won in France last Sunday.
So happy about this! I think he Is a good leader. The teacher wife thing is odd but if the French are fine with it then whatever. Still better than that crazy woman.
@Luna It’s actually none of our business, it is? The man can marry whoever he wants.
However, he is NOT a good leader since he decided to pass some laws by force…
I understand what Luna is saying…..they may have gotten together while he was very young. Commenters upthread have pointed to reports of his parents sending him away during his last year of school in an attempt to break up the “relationship” Cant be swept under the rug.
an adult grooming a child and/or an adult having sexual relations with a minor is absolutely public business because that’s a crime and also morally repugnant.
@Emma: Of course adult grooming is absolutely public business, but I don’t think Luna would’ve used the word “odd” to talk about grooming, the word “criminal” would’ve been more appropriate.
Thus my understanding of her comment as just a comment about the age difference, not about her grooming.
It’s time for people to get over their age difference and what happened 20 years ago. They seem like a very happy couple and I think it’s heart warming how much he adores & respects her. Unlike the orange man and his frozen-face wife, the Macrons are quite affectionate. I’m so relieved he won!
MLP would have won if it was not for the War in Ukraine, I think. Russia messed up her traction to power. I also think a lot of Macron people voted for her and would not otherwise because of their disenchantment with him. These people could not vote for the liberal because they are probably in Sarkozy’s camp. Although, Sarkozy endorsed Macron. The share of he restrain votes is bigger than MLP share, the last time I checked.
Wasn’t her father a politician of a similar ilk?
I spent three months in France when I was in high school as part of a semester abroad program, the first half in Paris and second half in a city in the South called Pau. The second night I was in Pau my French family took me to a rally of whoever the right-wing racist of the day was, and I think it was her father.
Looking back I cannot believe they did that! The father of the family was trying to explain his views to me in French, and even though my French was quite good at that time I was confused. I think I was just gobsmacked that they took me to what was basically an anti-immigrant hate rally. That was hugely inappropriate.
Yeah, she took over her dad’s horrible racist party and tried to rebrand it into something palatable. Her dad should rot in jail for the war crimes he committed in Algeria, he has multiple times denied the importance of the Holocaust and once claimed in an interview he couldn’t be racist cuz he had Black servants: he is complete garbage. And so is she (and the rest of their family). I’m not even gonna mention the utter crap they publish in Valeurs Actuelles and other BS racists publications.
The weirdest thing is that she claims to be for the people whereas she grew up in a super expensive gated community and left her dad’s house about 10yrs ago and has never worked for anything other than her dad’s organization. How the heck can people be fooled?!
But don’t the French always hate their president? And I also understand that Le Pen tried to tone down her extremist hate speech. 17% is a big win, it ain’t anything to not be proud of. Why so many voters didn’t turn out is another question, esp. when democracy was on the ballot, but the point is that democracy won. And in Slovenia, too.
I feel like the French love to complain much like Americans do.
Am I the only one who finds Macron sexy and like how he appears as a leader of France and within the EU? I am a Canadian- American (American born). Maybe it is my age why I find him sexy (I am 41). I do find the teacher story weird BUT her daughter has defended their marriage (she is 37 I believe) and said their love is so strong it is like no one else is in the room when you are around them. I think we need to leave it alone if her children are ok with the situation. I also read that his parents sent him away for his last year of university NOT high school and that it wasn’t enough to keep them apart. I also read his parents were bothered by the age difference and he was very smart and felt he should pursue other things instead. If they got together at 15, it was criminal, at 17 or 18, it wasn’t under French law. Given he is 44 and she is 68 now and they’ve been together decades, I really think we need to leave it be. We did with Celine Dion and her much older husband.
I have found people use the arrogance card for both Trudeau and Macron and quite frankly, when I hear it, I find those people saying it are indeed jealous. I was very smart in school myself and as an adult, I have been accused of arrogance by a few “friends” who have always appeared to wish me misery and unhappiness because they are as well. I keep my distance from those people who try to drag everyone down with them. Misery certainly loves company as you age.
I don’t know about Trudeau, but Macron IS arrogant but I guess that’s for the absolute majority of politicians…!
I think you are clearly mixing up “lycee” in French which is basically high school. They sent him away in high school to a very fancy well known school (Henri IV). He was a child when they met. She persued him hard, even after his parents tried to twart it. No one in France talks about it because in France it’s considered taboo to talk about a President’s personal life. You’re supposed to focus on his work and his policies not his personal life.
But as an American living in Paris I have no f—cks to give and yes she is creepy AF. After watching A Teacher that’s all I see her as. I would normally never pick on someone’s looks but when they drag her for being a man (which is clearly a totally baseless rumor) it’s like karma is getting it’s revenge. What she did was creepy and trying to paint it as some star crossed love story is sick. If she was a man people would be saying different. She groomed him and latched on to him. He made it through life well enough so it didn’t outwardly effect him and he seems happy, but it’s still wrong.