Emmanuel Macron to be re-elected in French elections: Projections | Elections News

Marine Le Pen concedes defeat as projections show Macron received 58-59 percent of votes in the runoff election.

French President Emmanuel Macron has defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen by a comfortable margin in Sunday’s runoff election, early projections by pollsters showed, securing a second term.

The first projections showed centrist Macron securing around 57-58 percent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff. Such estimates are normally accurate but may be fine-tuned as official results come in from around the country.

Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right RN (National Assembly), received 41.8 percent of the votes, the highest in her last three unsuccessful presidential bids.

Le Pen conceded defeat in a speech shortly after the polling projections were released, but still hailed her result as a “brilliant victory”.

Promising to “carry on” her political career and saying that she would “never abandon” the French, the 53-year-old said: “The result represents a brilliant victory.”

“In spite of two weeks of unfair, brutal and violent methods, similar to those that the French people undergo on a daily basis, the ideas that we represent are reaching a peak on the evening of the second round of the presidential election,” she said.

Macron would be the first French president in a generation to win a second term, since Jacques Chirac in 2002.

But he would face a divided nation and a battle to keep his parliamentary majority in legislative elections in June. He is the third ever French president to win two consecutive terms.

According to the exit polls by Franceinfo, an estimate of 28.2 percent of the electorate did not cast their votes.

Early official results are expected later Sunday night.

The final official results of the final round of presidential election will be released on April 27.

In a speech, far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon said the campaign for legislative elections in June starts tonight.

Melenchon, who united the first-round left-wing vote around him and has already talked about himself as a future prime minister, urged voters who are unhappy with the system not to give up.

“The voters have spoken, Le Pen has been beaten, France cleary refused to entrust its future to her. Macron’s election is the worst result of the fifth republic. He swims in an ocean of abstentions and spoiled ballots,” Melenchon said.

More to follow.