French Presidential Elections: With Le Pen defeat, Europe’s far-right surge stalls - Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola

EU-France: United we stand -Divided we fall

The anti-E.U. French leader Marine Le Pen’s larger-than-expected defeat Sunday in her nation’s presidential election was a crushing reality check for the far-right forces who seek to overthrow Europe: Despite the victories for Brexit and Donald Trump, they are likely to be shut out of power for years.

Given one choice after another since Trump’s U.S. presidential victory, Western European voters have delivered mainstream candidates to office despite a post-

November sense that an anti-immigrant populist wave was washing over the Western world. Far-right candidates in Austria, the Netherlands and France have faltered. The euroskeptic far-right party in Germany has collapsed in recent polls ahead of September elections. And an unforgiving election calendar now offers few routes into power for years.

The thwarted momentum comes despite clear evidence that views that would have been taboo to express just a few years ago are no longer too toxic to exclude politicians from coming a breath away from leadership. When Le Pen’s father reached a presidential runoff in 2002, his opponent refused even to debate with him, so unacceptable to the mainstream were his views. This time, many French citizens sat out the election altogether because they detested both Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron — even though the pro-European centrist Macron offered a vastly different platform from his opponent.

Le Pen’s result, about 34 percent, was still a historic high for her party.

“French people have chosen the continuity candidate,” a visibly disappointed Le Pen said in a brief concession address. She said she would seek to rename her National Front party, a measure of the extent to which her defeat rattled supporters who just weeks ago harbored hopes of capturing the Elysee Palace.

Now the test for Europe’s future will be whether Macron can rekindle France’s relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel after it languished during the five-year term of France’s current president, François Hollande, whose popularity hit record lows. If France continues to stagnate, Sunday’s victory may turn out to be a five-year reprieve from the far-right rather than a decisive rejection of it.

Note EU-Digest: European political  leaders better realize that even after this win, it can not not be business as usual from now on. They must come up with more attractive and innovative ideas and solutions to create a more united, independent, stronger, and people friendly European Union. An EU which has the courage to move away from being the US "lap-dog", specially when it comes to participating in US  foreign policies and military adventures around  the world. 

Read more: French Presidential elections: With Le Pen defeat, Europe’s far-right surge stalls - The Washington Post

France's new First Lady: From teacher to lover to France's first lady: Meet 'Madame Macron' - by Oliver Gee

France's first Lady  Brigitte Trogneux

So who is Brigitte Trogneux? The new first Lady of France.

In short, she is the 64-year-old wife of Emmanuel Macron. They've been married since 2007.

She was once his high school teacher and she is 25 years his senior.

 Yep. She used to be a French teacher at his private high school in Amiens, northern France. She also ran the theatre club where he was a budding actor. The picture above shows Macron's first "kiss" with Trogneux at the end of a theatre production.

 It seems like it was love at first sight - it's understood the pair used to have long discussions together - and she would read his writing out to the class.

"She used to recite his work all the time. She was totally captivated by his writing skills," a former classmate told Le Parisien newspaper.

When he moved to Paris at the age of 18, she jumped ship from her own family soon after and followed him down.

She told Paris Match magazine: "At the age of 17, Emmanuel said to me, 'Whatever you do, I will marry you!'"

As for the age difference - a French study from September said that it's a trend right now for French women to take younger lovers, so who cares?

Well, actually, Macron's parents did. They asked the then 40-year-old Trogneux to stay away from their 16-year-old son, at least until he turned 18, according to a new biography about the presidential candidate.

She put her teaching career on hold to help Macron in his push to become president, and Macron counts her as a trusted adviser, at least according to Paris Match.

"She spends all her time beside him, she reads and listens to everything that is said about him. He asks her questions and takes her advice," the magazine wrote.

In her LBM (Life Before Macron), Trogneux was married with three children, who are now all grown up and work as an engineer, a cardiologist, and a lawyer. She even has six grandchildren.

Her parents were part of a renowned family of chocolatiers in Amiens, which has been in the family for five generations and has turned over as much as €4 million per year.

It's said that they have some of the best macarons going around.

The French have been quick to point out that they've had the macarons d'Amiens for generations - and now they have the Macron d'Amiens.

Trogneux and Macron are no strangers to the press. They first stepped out together for the cameras in the summer of 2015 for a dinner with the King of Spain and his wife.

This was back when Macron was the economy minister.

Since then, they've never been far from the pages of gossip magazines like Closer and Paris Match, perhaps most famously during a shoot last year where they were photobombed by a nudist on a beach.

She isn't really one to give interviews, but she has revealed a quick wit and a sharp tongue at times.

While being hounded by a reported in this interview, she was asked why her husband was "so good at politics".

Her response: "He is good at everything. Not just politics, you're being quite restrictive."

She then added: "I'm yet to find an area where he isn't good", much to the smirks of the team at Le Petit Journal.

The Local/ EU-Digest

French Presidential Elections: Emmanuel Macron elected French president with a landslide 65.5% of the vote

France's newly elected President: Emmanuel Macron

With polls now closed across France, centrist Emmanuel Macron has been elected French President with an estimated 65.5% of the vote, with his rival, far-right Marine Le Pen, taking 34.5%.

• Macron, 39, has become the youngest president of France's Fifth Republic.France's 47 million 
• voters chose between radically different platforms: the free-trade, pro-EU policies of Macron's
• En Marche! (Forward!) party, and the protectionist nationalism of Le Pen's National Front.
• Voting stations opened at 8am (6am GMT) in mainland France Sunday, and most closed at Frenchj7pm, while those in larger cities closed at 8pm. Voters overseas began voting SatOfficial turnout figures have been lower than in the April 23 first round. The noon turnout was 28.2%, slightly less than the 28.5% in the first round. At 5pm, the turnout was 65.3%, lower than the 69.4% at the same time on April 23.
• It has been a historic election by several measures: both candidates were from parties outside the political mainstream. It follows an unprecedented campaign marked by scandal and repeated surprises.
• French law prohibited French media from quoting the presidential candidates or their supporters until the polls closes at 8pm Sunday.

Macron has reportedly told Germany’s Angela Merkel on the phone that he will soon travel to Berlin for a face-to-face meeting to get Europe moving again.

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy tweets: “Congratulations to @EmmanuelMacron, France’s new president. France and Spain should work together for a more stable, prosper and united Europe.”

President Trump used Twitter Sunday to extend a hand to France's new president-elect, Emmanuel Macron.  'Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France. I look very much forward to working with him!' Trump wrote.

The former deputy national security adviser to President Obama believes the defeat of Marine Le Pen, and victory for Emmanuel Macron, in the French presidential election shows the end of a wave of nationalistic populism.

The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted his congratulations, saying: “Happy that the French have chosen a European future. Together for a stronger and fairer Europe.”
J
uncker also sent a letter to Macron only 15 minutes after the exit poll result was published, in which he told the new French president that he welcomed “the ideas that you have advocated, a strong Europe, and progressive, that protects all its citizens”.

A spokesman for the German chancellor Angela Merkel was also quick to hail the result as a “victory for a strong and united Europe”. “Congratulations, @EmmanuelMacron. Your victory is a victory for a strong and united Europe and for French-German friendship,” tweeted Steffen Seibert in French and German.

Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, wrote: “Vive la France, Vive L’Europe!”, adding that it was a “a strong signal for our common values.” Separately, the German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel celebrated Macron’s win for keeping France “at the heart of Europe”.

“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! France chose that today. The great nation was, is, and remains in the middle and at the heart of Europe,” wrote Gabriel on Twitter, using France’s national slogan.

European council president Donald Tusk also offered his congratulations, saying the French had chosen “liberty, equality and fraternity” and “said no to the tyranny of fake news”.

EU-Digest

French pre-election TV showdown- Macron, Le Pen clash on euro, terrorism - by Michel Rose and Ingrid Melande

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen(supported by both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin) and centrist Emmanuel Macron clashed over their vision of France's future, the euro and ways of fighting terrorism in an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday before Sunday's run-off vote for the presidency.

The two went into the debate with opinion polls showing Macron, 39, with a strong lead of 20 percentage points over the National Front's Le Pen, 48, in what is widely seen as France's most important election in decades.

For Le Pen, the two-and-a-half hour debate, watched by millions, was a last major chance to persuade voters of the merits of her program which includes cracking down on illegal immigration, ditching the euro single currency and holding a referendum on EU membership.

However, 63 percent of viewers found Macron more convincing than Le Pen in the debate, according to a snap opinion poll by Elabe for BFMTV, reinforcing his status as favorite to win the Elysee on Sunday.

In angry exchanges, Le Pen played up Macron's background as a former investment banker and economy minister, painting him as heir to the outgoing unpopular Socialist government and as the "candidate of globalisation gone wild."

He savaged her flagship policy of abandoning the euro, calling it a fatal plan that would unleash a currency war, and he accused her of failing to offer solutions to France's economic problems such as chronic unemployment.

Read more: Macron, Le Pen clash on euro, terrorism, in French pre-election TV showdown | Reuters

French Presidential Elections: EU MEPs act to strip Le Pen of immunity in fake jobs case - by Eric Maurice

Le Pen and Putin during their recent meeting in Moscow

The European Parliament launched a procedure to lift immunity of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Wednesday (26 April) over claims she misused funds.

The assembly's president Antonio Tajani announced that a request from French judges had been forwarded to its legal affairs committee. The process is scheduled to begin in June.

The move comes as Le Pen, an anti-EU politician who has been an MEP since 2004, campaigns for the second round of the French presidential election on 7 May.

French judges requested her immunity be lifted at the end of March over claims of undue payments to members of her National Front (FN) party.

The parliament alerted the EU's anti-fraud office, Olaf, in 2015 after it discovered that about 20 people paid as assistants to FN MEPs were also listed as working at the party's headquarters near Paris.

According to a report leaked by French media earlier this year, Olaf found that Le Pen signed work contracts for her bodyguard and her head of cabinet assistant. It said the contracts could constitute a "misappropriation of funds, or fraud and use of fraud".

Last September, Le Pen was asked by the parliament to repay €339,946 to cover the salaries of the two assistants.

Paris judges opened a case against the FN over embezzlement, organised fraud, forgery, and undeclared work. They searched the party's headquarters in February.

Le Pen's head of cabinet, Catherine Griset, was charged a few days later.

According to Le Monde newspaper, judges found a document that could prove that the FN established a system to fund the party with EU parliament money.

"In the coming years, we can manage only by making large savings thanks to the European Parliament and if we obtain additional transfers," FN treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just wrote in a note to Le Pen, according to Le Monde.

On Thursday, the AFP press agency said parliament told judges the cost of the alleged fake jobs between 2012 and 2017 was €4,978,122.

Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing and said that the case was "persecution by political opponents".

She has so far refused to comply with court summonses, but losing her immunity would oblige her to obey.

The EU parliament already lifted her immunity in an unrelated case in March. She is under investigation in France after posting on Twitter, in 2015, pictures of men being tortured and killed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group, to protest against the comparison between IS and her National Front party by a journalist.

Le Pen, who came second in the election first round on Sunday, wants France to leave the euro and has promised to organise a referendum on the country's EU membership.

Read more: MEPs act to strip Le Pen of immunity in fake jobs case

French Presidential Elections: Can France's 'new man' prevail?-by Trudy Rubin

 Trudy RubinTrudy RubinThe final vote for the next French president, on May 7, will not only be critical for all of Europe but will have a major impact on the United States.

Despite their country's political and cultural differences from America, the French are going through an election upheaval that is amazingly similar to the convulsion that produced Donald Trump. The country is split between the winners from an open, globalized society and the losers who feel abandoned by traditional politicians.

On Sunday, in a first-round ballot with a field of 11 candidates, voters rejected mainstream parties of left and right, along with a host of independent candidates. The top two choices for a runoff were a political novice, Emmanuel Macron, who heads a new centrist party and supports an open society, closely followed by the populist, immigration-bashing nationalist, Marine Le Pen.

The polls show Macron ahead by 20 percent, yet - in these strange times - the outcome is far from certain. Should Le Pen pull an upset, we could see the collapse of NATO and the European Union and a further surge of populism on the continent.

In conversations this week with the current French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, and a former French ambassador Pierre Vimont, I heard serious concerns about the likely results.

"I would bet yes for Macron," says Araud, who was in Philly speaking for the French-American Chamber of Commerce and at Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. But then the ambassador listed his caveats.

Le Pen appeals to those who have been hurt by free trade agreements or automation. "It's not by chance that Hillary Clinton lost in the [U.S.] rust belt," he says, "and Marine Le Pen has done well in the French rust belt." Moreover, says Araud, the problem goes well beyond the issue of trade. "Ahead of us we have more automation, so how do we retrain a 45-year-old truck driver? We are facing a real problem that may worsen.

"As in America, the result in Europe is that we increasingly have dual societies, where 50 percent are quite comfortable and confident, and the other part of the population is suffering, with their income stagnating and dropping. They are looking for scapegoats, like immigrants."

This new political climate has helped Le Pen overcome the long-standing French distaste for the neo-fascist origins of her National Front Party. She has disavowed the party's anti-Semitic founder, her father, who advanced to the second round in 2002 presidential elections but then lost 80 percent to 20 percent.

Araud fears that Le Pen could win "because Macron is an unknown quantity and he will need people from the left and right to vote for him." That poses a problem which may look familiar to Clinton's supporters. In the first round of voting, third place with 20 percent of the ballots went to a far leftist with a certain resemblance to Bernie Sanders; many French Berniacs, including young activists, say they will never vote Macron, while some may switch to Le Pen.

Some voters for the fourth-place candidate, from France's conservative Republicans Party, may also vote Le Pen. And many disgruntled voters may stay home.

So the future of Europe depends on this: whether the 39-year-old Macron, a banker whose only political experience was a brief stint as economics minister for the current socialist government, can convince enough French voters that he offers new answers for a divided country.

Note EU-Digest: We can only hope the French voters contraruto the US voters will vote with their head,  and not vote for candidate Le Pen who is not only supported by Putin and Trump, but who, with her convoluted ideas, could also destroy France and the EU.

Read more:Can France's 'new man' prevail?

French Presidential elections: Parties in France Unite Against Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Penn is expected to have great difficulty in overcoming the united opposition of all other French mainstream political parties now united against her in support of Emmanuel Macron, the Centrist Candidate

Read more: Parties in France Unite Against Marine Le Pen - The New York Times

France: Macron 23.9% faces Le Pen 21.7 % for French presidency as mainstream parties bow out early

Macron wins first round - Runoff May 7

If Macron tops the first round – his score two hours after polls closed was estimated at 23.9 percent, 2.2 points up on the populist Le Pen, according to estimates by the Ipsos firm – it would somewhat salvage France’s reputation in Europe after the Europhobe Le Pen had topped polls for months before figures tightened down the stretch. If he doesn’t, Europhiles will have to be content with the fact that the other Europhobe in this race, the far-leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, monsieur momentum in the final days, did not advance to a showdown with Le Pen that would have spelled almost certain existential crisis for the European Union.

Le Pen matches her father’s achievement in 2002, when National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the country by making the run-off with 16.86 percent of the vote. But the younger Le Pen’s performance, far from a surprise, is a radically different exploit. Initial estimates show she has reached the second round with nearly five points more than Le Pen père scored 15 years ago and with a much higher estimated voter turnout.

Moreover, the senior Le Pen found himself pitted against incumbent president, former prime minister, and former Paris mayor Jacques Chirac in the 2002 run-off, eventually losing by a landslide 82.2 percent to 17.7 percent. This time, Marine Le Pen faces a neophyte politician in the 39-year-old Macron. The latter served as an Élysée Palace advisor and economy minister under unpopular outgoing Socialist President François Hollande, but he has never been elected to any post.

Polls have universally put Macron well ahead of Le Pen in surveys testing a run-off between the pair, but the vote on May 7 is likely to be considerably closer than the 2002 final. A Harris Interactive poll released Sunday night after the first round showed Macron scoring 64 percent ahead of the run-off to Le Pen’s 36 percent. A Cevipof poll released Wednesday put Macron at 61 percent to Le Pen’s 39 percent. Another poll this week, by the Elabe firm, put him at 62 percent.

But the result sets up a duel that Marine Le Pen will likely relish: the opportunity to wield her anti-establishment rhetoric against a former investment banker who attended two of France’s elite schools (Paris’s Institute of Political Studies -- Sciences Po Paris -- and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which trains the country’s top public servants) and who rose to power as the protégé of the unpopular Socialist Hollande.

The two run-off candidates will present French voters with stark choices, not least with regard to the European Union. The Europhile Macron, who won an explicit endorsement from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble before the first round, faces Le Pen, who wants to re-establish France’s national borders and whose programme calls for a referendum on France’s membership in the bloc.

"I want to be the president of the patriots against the threat of nationalists," Macron told cheering supporters after Sunday's vote.

Read more: Macron faces Le Pen for French presidency as mainstream parties bow out early - France 24

France: Tight race for the Elysee Palace - by Bernd Rieger

French voters will be going to the polls this Sunday with the memory of Thursday's deadly attack in Paris still fresh in their minds. All candidates, from left to right, cancelled their final campaign appearances following the incident. They are all calling for police and investigative authorities to be boosted.

The right-wing populist Marine Le Pen accused the Socialist government of having failed in the fight against Islamic terrorism. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in his turn accused Le Pen of exploiting the terror threat for the purposes of her campaign.

Surveys indicate that, after the fear of economic decline, voters are most worried about security and the threat posed by terrorism. There are no opinion polls recent enough to have measured voter sentiment following the most recent attack, which targeted police officers in the heart of Paris.

The state of emergency imposed in France after the Islamist attacks in Paris in November 2015 is still in force.

The race for France's presidency is wide open. The latest polls predict that four candidates out of the 11 candidates have a realistic chance of advancing to the decisive May 7 runoff. Two candidates, far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron, who founded a new party, have both been touted as favorites for the last several weeks. Some polls give Le Pen a slight edge; others give it to Macron. It is a neck-and-neck race. But far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon, the only representative of an established party, also have a decent chance of advancing. The two are just 2 or 3 percentage points behind front-runners Le Pen and Macron. That is well within the margin of error for such polling.

Election researcher Stephane Wahnich warned in a recent DW interview that nothing was certain. "We have many undecided voters in France. About a quarter of all voters have said that they will not decide until election day. That means that we are asking people who they will vote for even though they have yet to make up their minds." Wahnrich complains that France's voting public is no longer stable. "Our society is radically changing. This makes it difficult to come up with reliable projections. When you consider that fact, you have to conclude that opinion polls for this election are completely overrated."

Far-right populist Le Pen lost out in the first round of France's last presidential election in 2012. This time it seems certain that she will advance to the runoff. The ruling Socialist party of departing - and extremely unpopular - President Francois Hollande is playing no role whatsoever in the election. That is also something completely new in French politics. The country's political left is more divided than ever before. On the other hand, the rise of far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is especially popular among young French voters for his radical anti-EU slogans and calls for 100 percent taxation on the rich, is rather astonishing. Melenchon utterly rejects globalization and free-trade: "All trade deals that devastate the signatory countries must be stopped."

Read more: Tight race for the Elysee Palace | Europe | DW.COM | 22.04.2017

France: Macron Attacked by French Rivals as He Leads in Final Polls - by John Follain

French Presidential Elections: Emmanuel Macron versus Marine Le Pen

Emmanuel Macron’s rivals are training their fire on the centrist newcomer as opinion polls signal his narrow lead may be firming three days before the first round of France’s presidential election.
Nationalist Marine Le Pen and Republican Francois Fillon both attacked the 39-year-old former economy minister saying his ideas are weak and vague.

Support for Macron rose one point to 25 percent, while Le Pen was unchanged at 22 percent, according to a poll by Harris Interactive-France Televisions out on Thursday. Fillon slipped one point to 19 percent, level with Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon. The Bloomberg Composite of first-round polls showed Macron 1.5 points ahead, on 23.9 percent.

The four leading candidates all head into the final hours of campaigning with a chance of qualifying for the run-off on May 7. Surveys show Le Pen would lose the final vote, whoever she faces.

Read more: Macron Attacked by French Rivals as He Leads in Final Polls - Bloomberg

France: British Comedian John Oliver Warns France Against Electing Marine Le Pen: ‘Don’t F*ck Up, Too’

On Sunday’s edition of Last Week Tonight, the British comedian broke down the upcoming French presidential election. With current President François Hollande, a Socialist, enjoying a dismal 4 percent approval rating—due to 10 percent unemployment and a string of terrorist attacks under his watch—voters are yearning for new blood. The two frontrunners are Emmanuel Macron, who is center-left, and Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right National Front.

Despite its not-so-latent racism, Le Pen’s National Front party has managed to win several seats at the local and national level, which explains why many are calling this upcoming French presidential election a battle for the future of Europe. If Le Pen wins and is granted her wish of France leaving the European Union, then the EU will likely fragment.

It’s particularly challenging for American and British people to watch because, well, we’ve seen this show before—and it isn’t pretty.

“One of the frustrating things about watching this unfold from America is this feels a little like déjà vu: a potentially destabilizing populist campaigning on anti-immigrant rhetoric who rages against the elites despite having a powerful father and inherited wealth,” said Oliver, comparing Le Pen to U.S. President Donald Trump.

To watch John Oliver click here

France: Marine Le Pen: Loans from Russia - Who's funding France's far right? - by Gabriel Gatehouse

Putin and LePen: Is LePen doing her banking in Russia ?

When Marine Le Pen appeared in the Kremlin on 24 March, it was Vladimir Putin himself who gave voice to the thought that was surely on many people's minds:

"I know that the presidential campaign is developing actively in France," the Russian president said, adding: "Of course, we do not want to influence events in any way."

The Russian president appeared to be suppressing a grin as he spoke those words. Marine Le Pen appeared unperturbed.

She repeated her support for Moscow's annexation of Crimea, and her opposition to the sanctions subsequently imposed by the EU. If elected to the Elysee Palace, she pledged: "I would envisage lifting the sanctions quite quickly."

So the meeting was a win for both. Madame Le Pen looked like a world-leader-in-waiting; Mr Putin received assurances from a woman who might become president of France, and who, like him, opposes the EU and Nato.

But there is more to the relationship between Mr Putin and Ms Le Pen than ideological convergence. Because of the National Front's racist and anti-Semitic past, French banks have declined to lend the party money.

So Marine Le Pen has been forced to look elsewhere for financing.

In 2014, the National Front took Russian loans worth €11m (£9.4m). One of the loans, for €9m, came from a small bank, First Czech Russian Bank, with links to the Kremlin.

The loan was brokered by Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, an energy consultant turned MEP, who has called himself "Mr Mission Impossible".

Read more: - by Gabriel GatehouseMarine Le Pen: Who's funding France's far right? - BBC News

France: Why the French presidential election is both so scary and so important - by Brunello Rosa,

On the threshold of a populist revolution?

Following the first presidential debate on March 20, the race for the French presidency is now in full swing. My research firm MacroGeo is following these elections very closely.

At the end of last year we published a travel journal from Paris where we noted the risk of underestimating Marine Le Pen's chances of winning, and more recently our friend Pascal Gauchon, editor-in-chief of the French geopolitical magazine "Conflits," declared that the French are experiencing their most bizarre election campaign since 1848.

[France will hold its first round election on April 23. The two candidates with the most votes will then face off for the presidency on May 7. The five candidates still in the race are Emmanuel Macron (Onward!, centrist), Marine Le Pen (Nationalist Front, far right), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Unsubmissive France, far left), François Fillon (The Republicans, right), and Benoît Hamon (Socialist Party, left).]

There are many reasons why the stage was set for the farce that is now playing out.

Hamon and Fillon have been overtaken by Emmanuel Macron, of his independent centrist movement Onward!, and Marine Le Pen, of the far right National Front party. Jean-Luc Mélanchon of the far-left Unsubmissive France movement will likely place third.

 The Republican and Socialist parties are the only ones with candidates still in the race that held primaries. And in both cases, party members did not choose the most moderate candidate with the highest chance of winning, but the candidate who was speaking to the most radical elements of his party's base [without being as radical as the outsider candidates].

It is no coincidence that the candidates who will qualify for the second ballot on May 7 will probably be those who did not take part in the primaries.

If either Macron or Le Pen win, it is unlikely they would enjoy a parliamentary majority that would allow them to implement the reforms they have in mind.

 The battle between Macron and Le Pen is a clash between an open and European France and an inward-looking country.

The two candidate's electoral campaigns are diametrically opposed. While Macron is openly pro-European, Le Pen wants France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro.

Le Pen is still underestimated and Macron is overestimated.

Due to the manner in which polls are conducted and because of the reference sample, it is probable that Macron is currently receive a higher approval rating than the ballots will show.

And Le Pen will probably be able to attract voters who are not included in surveys, as well as those who do not publicly endorse her due to the stigma still attached to National Front.

The class struggle has only just begun and will continue regardless of who wins.  

Read more: Why the French presidential election is both so scary and so important - Business Insider

France: Russia interfering in French Pres, Elections by targeting front runner Macron with 'fake news' says party chief

Russia trying to discredit Emmanuel Macron with fake news

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is a "fake news" target of Russian media and his campaign is facing thousands of cyber attacks, his party chief said on Monday.

Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of Macron's En Marche! (Onwards!) party, said that Russian state-controlled media Russia Today and Sputnik had spread false reports with the aim of swinging public opinion against Macron.

An independent centrist, Macron has surged in campaigning for the French election and opinion polls make him favorite to win election in May.

Ferrand said that Macron, as a staunch pro-European, was a Russian target because he wanted a strong united Europe that had a major role to play in world affairs, including in the face of Moscow.

Sputnik earlier this month ran an interview with a conservative French lawmaker accusing Macron, a former investment banker, of being an agent of "the big American banking system", a report that was in turn picked up by Russia Today.

Read more: Macron is Russian 'fake news' target - party chief - France - RFI

France: Sarkozy's comeback in tatters as he’s knocked out of French presidential primary

Nicolas Sarkozy, whose dream of a triumphant return to the French presidency was destroyed at the first hurdle Sunday, failed to shake off a reputation as one of the country's most divisive figures.

With tough talk on immigration, security and national identity, the 61-year-old tried to woo voters tempted by the far-right National Front with an unabashedly populist campaign.

But the man known universally in France as "Sarko" was humiliated in the rightwing's first ever primary, finishing third behind the man who served as his prime minister, Francois Fillon, and another ex-premier, Alain Juppe.

Read more: Sarkozy's comeback in tatters as he’s knocked out of French presidential primary - France 24

France: Sarkozy received suitcases full of cash from Libya’s Gaddafi, businessman says

Just days before a crucial French presidential primary, former President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing fresh allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

An investigation into the case, involving funding for Sarkozy’s successful 2007 presidential campaign, has been underway since 2013.

In a video interview with the investigative website Mediapart released Tuesday, a French-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, said he delivered three suitcases from Libya, containing 5 million euros in cash, to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff and campaign director, Claude Guéant.

Takieddine said he had given a written deposition to judges on November 12 detailing three cash handovers between 2006 and 2007 and his meetings with Guéant and Sarkozy.

At no point, he says, did he see the two men look inside the cases after he dropped them off at the Interior Ministry, where Sarkozy was minister at the time.

Read moreL Sarkozy received suitcases full of cash from Libya’s Gaddafi, businessman says - France 24

French election 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy faces defeat as France heads to polls - by John Irish and Sybille de La Hamaide

France voted on Sunday in elections that could crown Francois Hollande as its first Socialist president in nearly two decades, marking a leftward shift at the heart of Europe and making Nicolas Sarkozy the region’s 11th leader to be toppled by the economic crisis.

Buoyed by a tide of anger at Sarkozy’s inability to rein in rampant unemployment during his five-year term, Hollande was between four and eight points ahead in final opinion polls for Sunday’s vote, which takes place alongside a Greek parliamentary election expected to punish leading parties for economic misery.

A wide margin of victory would give Hollande more authority to pursue his promise to push back a wave of unpopular German-inspired austerity in Europe, which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets across the region last week, by refocusing on growth-orientated policies.

Read more: French election 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy faces defeat as France heads to polls | News | National Post

French Presidential Elections: Sarkozy gains ground, but Hollande victory likely: polls - by Angela Charlton

The final polls before France's presidential election Sunday show President Nicolas Sarkozy making up ground on Socialist challenger Francois Hollande — but still predict a Hollande victory.

Mr. Sarkozy on Friday predicted a “surprise” and Mr. Hollande urged his voters to avoid complacency as the bitter campaign neared its climax, driven by fears about joblessness, immigration and France's economic future.

Mr. Sarkozy, disliked by many voters for his handling of the economy, promised he could come out victorious on Sunday. Speaking on Europe-1 radio Friday, he said much will depend on whether French voters bother to cast ballots in an election that polls have always predicted Mr. Hollande would win.

For more: Sarkozy gains ground, but Hollande victory likely: polls - The Globe and Mail

French Presidential elections: Sarkozy unable to land knockout punch to Hollande in three hr TV debate

Trailing Hollande in opinion polls by six to 10 points before Sunday's decisive runoff Sarkozy needed a knockout punch in this three hour TV debate to turn the tables. It did not happen.

"Sarkozy needs to swing 1.5 million people to his side. It won't be easy, but that doesn't mean it's impossible," Bernard Sananes, head of the CSA polling institute told a TV station

The duel was carried live on channels that reach roughly half France's 44.5 million voters.

Hollande appeared more confident and relaxed through most of the exchanges, saying he aimed to be "the president of justice", "the president of revival" and "the president of unity", and copying the Obama  2008 slogan, "the president of change".

Sarkozy, struggling to keep his job, came out slugging, assailing Socialist Hollande's plans to raise taxes and boost spending, repeatedly accusing him of lying. The Socialist Hollande held his own in a fight that many expected would be dominated by the sharp-tongued Sarkozy.

Interesting was both candidates strong support for the European Union even though they disagreed on details related to the application of the EU financial pact and the policies of the European central bank

EU-Digest

Germany must accept growth pact says Hollande - by Hugh Carnegy

François Hollande, the frontrunner in France’s presidential election, stepped up his campaign for fresh initiatives to boost European growth on Wednesday, saying Germany had to accept it was the only way to solve the eurozone crisis.

At a press conference in Paris, the Socialist party leader sharpened his tone on Europe, clearly responding to the big vote won in Sunday’s first round of the election by far right and far left candidates who strongly attacked austerity policies led by Berlin.

He called for a “new Europe” which stressed “solidarity, progress and protection” and warned against a split between northern and southern countries in the European Union. “If we say Germany will pay to cover the debts and deficits, I understand their reticence. Everybody must make their efforts [on public finances],” he said.. “But Germany must realise that it is growth that will allow us to solve a big part of our problems.”

For more: Germany must accept growth pact says Hollande - FT.com