Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidential election. He is projected to have won by just over 65pc, pretty much the exact majority the polls have suggested all week. So it’s no populist surprises tonight, and chapeau to France pollsters.
Everybody thinks the French are revolutionary, but actually the Fifth Republic is constitutionally and temperamentally conservative. Macron has won because he is the less immediately dangerous choice. He’s a europhile centrist who says all the things global statesmen are meant to say. He’s a neophyte but he’s also a typical post Cold War politician in the Tony Blair mould.
The real story of the French election is not Macron. It is the great disgruntlement in French politics. The major parties — the Republicans and the Socialists — were knocked out two weeks ago. And for all the hype and youthful buzz around Macron’s en Marche movement, turnout for the second round is at 65pc, the lowest in French presidential since 1981, and 8.8pc
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