French Elections 2017
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Macron favourite as France votes for new president, early turnout low
French voters choose on Sunday whether a pro-European Union centrist or a eurosceptic, anti-immigration far-rightist will lead them for the next five years, with early figures indicating turnout could be low, but above most recent forecasts. -
The courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was due to speak later on Sunday, was briefly evacuated after a suspect bag was found.
Police in the French capital said they made security checks of the area as a precaution and later added that the situation there had returned to normal.
Centrist Macron, who is tipped to beat the far right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in an election for president on Sunday, is due to address his supporters at the grounds of the Louvre in the evening after the result comes out. -
France fights to keep Macron email hack from distorting election
ReutersFrance sought to keep a computer hack of frontrunner Emmanuel Macron's campaign emails from influencing the outcome of the presidential election, with the electoral commission warning on Saturday that it may be a criminal offense to republish the data. -
Not sure either candidate in French election is popular in my neighbourhood but one even less so #Presidentielle2017 https://t.co/hVEBb24FcO
2:35 PM - 07 May 2017- Reply
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Francois Bayrou arrives at the headquarters of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Paris #Frenchelections2017 REUTERS/Gonz… https://t.co/rCgA9UPDqe3:29 PM - 07 May 2017
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The number of blank voting papers is also high, according to the Belgian report. The figures indicate a possible trend but with three and a half hours of voting left in the main cities, it is still early to rely too heavily on initial projections circulating abroad.
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Election #Presidentielle2017 65,30 %: taux de participation à 17h pour le 2nd tour en 🇫🇷 métropolitaine (71,96 % en… https://t.co/lYlFSTvHV84:00 PM - 07 May 2017
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Macron clearly leading in French presidential elections: Belgian media
ReutersMore than 60 percent of voters have cast or were planning to cast their ballots in French presidential elections for Emmanuel Macron according to surveys carried out on Sunday, Belgian media said. -
If you like electoral number-crunching, there are three wild cards to watch out for in tonight’s voting: the number of abstentions, the number of blank votes and the number of spoiled ballot papers.As of 5pm, participation was lower than at the same hour in any second round so far this century, though it is worth recalling that some voting stations are staying open an hour longer this year.Le Monde has taken a closer look at how these three variables could affect the outcome of the vote.A high abstention rate is widely considered to favour Marine Le Pen because of the commitment of her supporters (at least that is what the Macron camp appears to be believe, with calls to France’s 47 million voters get out and vote today).But the final results must also take into account spoiled papers and blank votes. The latter (which are in reality an empty envelope) are potentially important this time because of polls suggesting that a large slice of those who supported leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round could vote ‘blanc’ in the run-off in order to signal discontent with Macron’s free-market policies.It is only after the deducting blank votes and spoiled ballot papers that the percentage results are calculated.See here for an example at the last election 2012:Out of 46 million electors, just under 20% abstained or did not turn up to polling stations. Of the remaining 37 million voters, 5.8% spoiled their voting papers or voted ‘blanc’. So only 75.7% of the electorate cast valid votes. Of these, Francois Hollande won the presidency with 51.64% of valid votes or 39.1% of the electorate.Liberation has looked at the history of the vote 'blanc,' an invisible force in French politics since the Revolution and which some campaigners want officially recorded as a legitimate voting choice. At the moment they are lumped together with spoiled ballot papers and rejected as invalid.
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Here from my colleague Sybille de la Hamaide, who is down at the Interior Ministry, are some previous second-round abstention levels to use for comparisons:20.02% in 199520.29% in 200216.03% in 200719.65% in 2012The projected abstention rate this year - 25-27%, according to three surveys - would thus be the highest this century and the highest since 31.1% in 1969: an unusual conservative vs centrist election following the resignation of President Charles de Gaulle.
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Matthias Blamont notes a throng of journalists also making their way to "Le Chalet du Lac," a large restaurant in eastern Paris where Marine Le Pen is due to spend the evening with her supporters.Fact of the day: Dominique Vidalon notes that the Chalet du Lac was the site of the first gig the Sex Pistols played abroad in September 1976.
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#Macron's post-victory party will be at the Louvre, a former seat of royal power and a symbol of France's claim to… https://t.co/rCJVreUemX5:46 PM - 07 May 2017
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Both candidates have chosen unusual locations for their post-victory parties, dismissing Bastille & Concorde square… https://t.co/gVRnoA4Hux5:39 PM - 07 May 2017
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5:54 PM - 07 May 2017
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So far there are no official results and only some unconfirmed foreign media reports indicating a projected victory for centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron with approximately 62% of the vote.But with an hour to go in France's 2017 presidential election, Reuters reporters are already witnessing contrasting moods at the sites where Macron and Le Pen are holding carefully planned rallies this evening.Mathieu Rosemain and Sarah White have spotted confident Macron supporters singing the Marseillaise outside the Louvre museum. See their live update below.At the Chalet du Lac restaurant in eastern Paris, where Marine Le Pen's supporters are gathering, Matthias Blamont finds the mood relatively downcast but pragmatic as the National Front prepares to increase its score sharply since Le Pen's father ran in 2002, whatever the outcome of the election.Michel Caron, 41, a legal expert who supports Le Pen, says: "If she gets 38% there will be shouts of joy in the room."
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Helen Reid, from our European stock-market reporting team, is in Paris to cover overnight market reaction to the election. The next post is from her, outlining how investors are playing one of the most keenly watched French elections for years, and you can follow her at @helenmariareid.
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Global markets have been anticipating the result of this election for months, and the relief rally in French and Europe-wide equities after the first-round vote provided an indication of how fearful investors had been of a Marine Le Pen win. Markets see Le Pen as posing an existential risk to the European Union, and investors are wary of protectionist policies she espouses and her plan to return France to the franc.The euro in particular has shown a great deal of sensitivity to this election with the future of the European Union and the single currency hanging in the balance.Equity markets have rallied since the first round, confident in polls finding that Emmanuel Macron would easily beat her in the second round.Investors have been calling en masse for a return to unloved European equities, with this political risk ‘roadblock’ seen as lifted. In the last session on Friday, European shares surged to a fresh 21-month high led by France’s major benchmark, the CAC 40, which hit a new 9 ½ year high.The market reaction could be quite something if a Macron victory does not materialise.Here’s a summary of what our markets team is going to be watching closely tonight and tomorrow, in either outcome:- Italian banks. With their ongoing non-performing loan issues and EU-sponsored bailouts, these are some of the most sensitive stocks to any concerns around the resilience of the bloc. They rallied sharply after the first round.- French banks. They jumped up to 10 percent on the day after the first round.- The CAC 40, France's benchmark of large-cap stocks, and the SBF120, a broader index of companies exposed to France and the global economy- French government-owned companies. Macron has said he would cut the government’s stake in these firms which include Orange, Renault, Peugeot, Energie de France and Aeroports de Paris. These were among the best-performing stocks after the first round, and we’ll be watching their reaction tomorrow as well.
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#Présidentielle Pour consulter les taux de participation à 17h du second tour pour chaque département >>… https://t.co/DyGC0XaCFo6:15 PM - 07 May 2017
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Huge press queue at #Louvre for #Macron's rally on final round of pdtial election, tight security #France2017… https://t.co/SrtwWrSUzo5:28 PM - 07 May 2017
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Inching closer to the entry for Macron election night.. un centimètre à la fois #frenchelection2017 https://t.co/VWyaMdBFTg
6:20 PM - 07 May 2017- Reply
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With markets having already rallied following Macron’s
victory in the first round, is there much further to go? Some suggest a potential victory
tonight may not be greeted as gleefully as it was after the first round, as markets have already reacted as if it was a fait accompli.“On stock markets’ reaction, I fear the saying ‘buy the
rumour, sell the fact’ – this could prove to be the case in the beginning of
the week,” said Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management.And whatever the result tonight, it won’t end uncertainty over French policy - the
next big hurdle will be legislative elections in June, which will either cement
the president’s power or make it difficult for them to pass policies in the case
of a cohabitation scenario.“There’s the possibility of a gridlock scenario,” said
Isabelle Mateos Y Lago, chief multi-asset strategist at Blackrock. “Whereas if
it turns out that Macron does get voted in, a back of the envelope calculation
suggests [his proposed] corporate tax reductions could boost French corporate earnings by
above 10 percent, if he is able to implement them.” -
Early indicators today showed the euro topping $1.10 for the first time since the U.S. election results, according to data from trading platform EBS, on reports of polls showing Emmanuel Macron on course to win the French presidential election.Voting is not due to close until 1800 GMT but Belgian media published what they said were surveys taken on Sunday by four unnamed pollsters among people who had voted or intended to vote. The Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said the surveys put Macron's share of the vote at between 62 and 67 percent.EBS data showed the euro jumping to $1.1030 EUR=EBS, the highest level since Nov. 9, and up from a close of $1.09995 on Friday. Liquidity was, however, very thin ahead of the market open in Asia.Reporting by Jemima Kelly.
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9 minutes til we have the first projections of the French election result6:51 PM - 07 May 2017
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And we're in, phew. Stage set around the Louvre pyramid for Macron's election night rally #presidentielle2017 https://t.co/SDv5CHH7Bl
6:53 PM - 07 May 2017- Reply
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Sarah White says Macron supporters are gathering inside the Louvre courtyard in front of the glass pyramid where a stage has been set up. Many are waving French flags and watching the countdown on a huge tv screen.About seven minutes to go until polls close and the first projections are published.
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Emmanuel Macron has been elected president of France with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union, early projections from five polling organisations show.
The projections, issued as polling stations closing at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), showed Macron beating Le Pen by at least 65 percent to 35 - a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage point margin that pre-election surveys had pointed to.
The centrist's emphatic victory, which also smashed the dominance of France’s mainstream parties, will bring huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain's vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump's election as U.S. president.
The 39-year-old former investment banker, who served for two years as economy minister but has never previously held elected office, will now become France's youngest leader since Napoleon with a promise to transcend left-right divisions.
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7:00 PM - 07 May 2017
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At 39, Macron is the youngest president since Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who became president of France’s second republic in 1848 at the age of 40 and later became emperor Napoleon III.Macron is also the youngest leader of any kind since Louis-Napoleon's uncle Napoleon Bonaparte became first consul in 1799. at the age of 30.(This post has been edited to show that Macron is the youngest French leader since Napoleon and the youngest president since Napoleon's nephew)
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Biggest challenge for President Macron now: He needs to win a parliamentary majority in the June elections.7:04 PM - 07 May 2017
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Very early returns from the interior ministry indicate abstentions so far as high as 29%. Out of the voters who did present themselves, 8.7% cast blank votes and 4% spoiled their ballots.Health warning: these are very early figures based on 5.8 million out of the 47 million people who were eligible to vote in this election.
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Arab states demand Qatar closes Jazeera, cuts back ties to Iran
DUBAI Four Arab states boycotting Qatar over alleged support for terrorism have sent Doha a list of 13 demands including closing Al Jazeera television and reducing ties to their regional adversary Iran, an official of one of the four countries said.