French voters on Sunday elected centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s youngest president.
Minutes after becoming president Macron vowed to defend Europe.
Macron has never run for office before. With 99.99 percent of ballots counted, Macron had 66.06 percent of the vote in the first ever election he has contested, far ahead of Marine Le Pen at 33.94 percent.
“France has won!” he said. “Everyone said it was impossible. But they do not know France!” He said.
Earlier, in a solemn televised victory speech, Macron vowed to heal the social divisions exposed by France’s acrimonious election campaign
Macron’s victory marked the third time in six months — following elections in Austria and the Netherlands — that European voters shot down far-right populists who wanted to restore borders across Europe. The election of a French president who championed European unity could also strengthen the EU’s hand in its complex divorce proceedings with Britain.
After the most closely watched and unpredictable French presidential campaign in recent memory, many voters rejected the runoff choice altogether. Pollsters projected that French voters cast blank or spoiled ballots in record numbers Sunday.
Macron now becomes not only France’s youngest-ever president but also one of its most unlikely. Until now, modern France had been governed either by the Socialists or the conservatives — but both Macron and Le Pen upended that right-left political tradition.
Macron takes charge of a nation that, when Britain leaves the EU in 2019, will become the EU’s only member with nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
He has promised a France that would stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin but that also would seek to work with the Russian leader on what he says will be one of his top priorities: fighting the Islamic State group, whose extremists have claimed or inspired multiple attacks in France since 2015.
France has been in a state of emergency since then and 50,000 security forces safeguarded Sunday’s vote
