Macron, Le Pen Set for French Election Run-off

Pro-European Emmanuel Macron is set to face far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential run-off, making him clear favorite to emerge as the country’s youngest leader in modern history.

Macron was projected to win 23.9 percent in Sunday’s first round, slightly ahead of National Front (FN) leader Le Pen with 21.7 percent, according to estimates on public television.

They will contest the run-off on May 7.

“I want to be the president of the patriots against the threat of nationalists,” 39-year-old Macron told thousands of cheering supporters in Paris.

The euro rose sharply against the dollar and yen as the results emerged.

Macron, a former banker and economy minister whose marriage to his former school teacher has fascinated France, said the results were a clear rejection of France’s traditional parties.

Neither candidate from the mainstream Republicans and Socialist parties made it through to the second round for the first time in six decades, in a major shakeup of national politics.

“The challenge is to break completely with the system which has been unable to find solutions to the problems of our country for more than 30 years,” Macron added, already eyeing parliamentary elections in June.

The outcome capped an extraordinary campaign in a deeply divided and demoralized France, which has been hit by a series of terror attacks since 2015 and remains stuck with low economic growth.

Macron, who had never before stood for election and only started his grassroots centrist movement 12 months ago, will go into the second round as the clear frontrunner.

New polls released Sunday evening showed pro-business Macron easily beating Le Pen, who has hardened her anti-immigration and anti-Europe rhetoric over the last week.

The French vote was being closely watched as a bellwether for populist sentiment following the election of Donald Trump as US President and Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

Le Pen follows in the footsteps of her father Jean-Marie, who made it through to the 2002 presidential run-off in what came as a political earthquake for France.

Le Pen Senior went on to suffer a stinging defeat when mainstream parties closed ranks to keep him out.

Though projections showed Le Pen coming in behind Macron, there was joy at FN headquarters in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, with outbursts of the Marseillaise national anthem as supporters learned she had gone through to the run-off.

Le Pen said the second round would be a battle over France’s future. Her vision of a France out of the EU and behind reinforced borders is the opposite of Macron’s.

“The major issue of this election is runaway globalization, which is putting our civilization in danger,” she told supporters.

“Either we continue on the path of complete deregulation, with no borders and no protection… mass immigration and free movement of terrorists… or you choose France,” she added.