There was an update on April 24, 2022, at 02:21pm.
According to initial polling data from France's second round of voting on Sunday, centrist PresidentEmmanuelMacron will win a second five-year term, fending off far-right Marine Le Pen in an election that holds international consequence given the foreign policy differences between the centrist and far-right
The French President is at a rally.
According to exit polls from France, Macron won the vote with 58.2%.
After the initial projections were released at 2 p.m., Le Pen conceded defeat. The victory was handed over at 8 p.m. local time.
In the first round of France's presidential elections on April 10, neither candidate received a simple majority of votes.
The voter turnout was 63.23% as of 5 p.m., down 2% from the same time last year.
The final polls last week showed a 10% lead for Macron over Le Pen, and The Economist gave him a 95 percent chance of winning a second term.
In the last election, Le Pen lost by a 66.1% margin to a member of the R&publique En Marche! party. Le Pen's nationalist and anti-immigration sentiment was seen as more popular by voters than Macron's pro-EU policies and international focus. Le Pen wants France to pull out of NATO's integrated command and to ban Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public, and she has accused Macron of acting in the best interest of the EU, not France. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a key factor in the election, as both Le Pen and Macron condemned the invasion. During the war, he faced backlash abroad for his continued communications with Putin, and he has engaged in consistent diplomacy with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Since 2002, only one French president has been re-elected.
Le Pen's victory may cause uncertainty in the markets, as it may affect France's international and EU ties. Le Pen's win would cause French equity markets to fall. Ariane Hayate, fund manager at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management in Paris, said a Le Pen win would be a terrible day for markets. If Le Pen wins, it could be bigger than Trump.
The investors are vulnerable to the Le Pen shock.
Far-right candidate Le Pen has Russian ties.
The French election could be a bigger shock to the markets.
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