After victory, Macron faces challenge for legislative elections

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - French President Emmanuel Macron has won the re-election with 58.54% of the vote, against 41.46% for his rival from the National Rally (RN) Marine Le Pen, according to the final results declared by the Interior Ministry.

Macron received a total of 18,779,641 votes (18.8 million), which constitutes only 38.52% of the total vote. It is the lowest voting percentage for the elected winner since 1969 when President Georges Pompidou received 37.51% votes.

Meanwhile, Le Pen obtained 27.28% with 13,297,760 votes (13.3 million), which is by far the highest ever for a far-right candidate.

The most startling detail of the data was in the number of voters, 28.01%, who stayed away from exercising their democratic rights. Of the 48.75 million registered voters 13,656,109 (13.6 million) chose to not vote.

This is the highest figure for abstention in the second round of a presidential election since 1969 when 31.15% of the voters shunned the ballot. Nearly 2,228,044 (2.2 million) voters constituting 4.57% also left their ballots blank as a mark of protest.

Opinion polls before the voting indicated a large number of voters hoping for a political change were disappointed with the choice between the two final candidates. They neither wanted to elect incumbent Macron nor wanted to see Le Pen at the Elysee.

Records show that there is a general disinterest and political apathy among the French toward the varied elections. A large percentage of voters stayed away from the regional elections in June last year.

Macron now faces the challenge of the parliamentary elections scheduled on June 12 and 19. The National assembly consists of 577 lawmakers who will determine the shape of the policies and legislation over the next five years.

In his victory speech, Macron acknowledged that a majority of voters elected to defeat far-right Le Pen and he will have to work harder to win their approval.

Le Pen has vowed to stay defiant despite her loss for the presidency and fight the legislative elections. She is yet to accept the offer of her opponent, Erick Zemmour, to join forces in a national alliance of far-right parties to defeat candidates from Macron’s Republic on the Move party.