Pro-European
centrist Emmanuel Macron resoundingly won France's landmark presidential
election, first estimates showed Sunday, heading off a fierce challenge from
the far-right in a pivotal vote for the future of the divided country and
Europe.
The victory
caps an extraordinary rise for the 39-year-old former investment banker, who
will become the country's youngest-ever leader.
He has
promised to heal a fractured and demoralized country after a vicious campaign
that has exposed deep economic and social divisions, as well as tensions around
identity and immigration.
Initial
estimates showed Macron winning between 65.5 percent and 66.1 percent of
ballots ahead of Le Pen on between 33.9 percent and 34.5 percent.
Unknown
three years ago, Macron is now poised to become one of Europe's most powerful
leaders, bringing with him a hugely ambitious agenda of political and economic
reform for France and the European Union.
The result
will resonate worldwide and particularly in Brussels and Berlin where leaders
will breathe a sigh of relief that Le Pen's anti-EU, anti-globalisation
programme has been defeated.
After
Britain's vote last year to leave the EU and Donald Trump's victory in the US,
the French election had been widely watched as a test of how high a tide of
right-wing nationalism would rise.
Le Pen, 48,
had portrayed the ballot as a contest between Macron and the
"globalists" -- in favor of open trade, immigration and shared
sovereignty -- and her "patriotic" vision of strong borders and
national identities.
Outgoing
President Francois Hollande, who plucked Macron from obscurity to name him
minister in 2014, said voting "is always an important, significant act,
heavy with consequences" as he cast his vote.
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