Independent centrist Macron elected French president

Centrist independent candidate Emmanuel Macron beat on Sunday with comfortable margin the far-right rival Marine Le Pen to become France's new president, according to exit polls.

The polls placed Macron first with 62.46 percent ahead of Le Pen who got 37.54 percent of the votes in the run-off round. The initial percentages can change slightly as the rest of the votes are counted.

The far-right leader has conceded defeat and said her National Front party has become the country's leading opposition party, pledging a "profound reform" of her party to create "a new political force".

Macron, a former economy minister, who has never before run for elected office, is ardently pro-EU and has praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for taking in over a million refugees.

Macron, a former investment banker, was top adviser on economic issues of outgoing president Francois Hollande from 2012 to 2014, then economy minister in his Socialist government for two years.

He later founded his own political movement 'En Marche!' (On the move) in April last year.

- New page of history
In a very calm and short victory speech, Macron thanked those who trusted him and elected him saying it is a "big honor, and an immense responsibility".
He said his address is to all of France's citizens, not just those who voted for him and saluted his rival Marine Le Pen.
"A new page of history is starting today. I want this page to be one of hope and trust," Macron said, adding he is "aware of the anger, doubt and anxiety" that many French feel.

On Europe, Macron promised "to work to re-establish the links between Europe and the peoples who form it". He assured that France will be "at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, both on its soil and internationally".

His primary task over the coming five years, he said, was to "calm people's fears, restore France's confidence, and gather all its people together to face the immense challenges that face us in the future".

"I will fight with all my strength against the division that is undermining and defeating us, and we will be able to restore to the French people the chances that France owes them. Let us love France. For the next five years, I am going with humility, dedication and determination to serve it on your behalf. Long live the Republic, long live France," the new French president concluded his speech.

- Historic abstention rate
According to exit polls, the abstention rate is estimated at 25.3 percent, the highest since 1969 when the rate of abstention hit a record 31.1 percent with two centre right candidates: Georges Pompidou and Alain Poher.
Blank or spoiled votes are also estimated to reach an absolute record of about 12 percent which equals more than 4.2 million, or around 9 percent of all registered voters.
This is explained by the fact that several voters, in particular among leftist voters, refused to choose between Macron and Le Pen.

Macron, 39, becomes the youngest president of France's Fifth Republic.
The official results would be announced on May 10th by the President of the Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius.
Macron will formally take office by mid-May and has to prepare for a two-round legislative elections in June.
- Leaders respond to Macron's victory
The U.S. President Donald Trump was one of the first world leaders to congratulate "Macron on his big win."

"I look very much forward to working with him!" Trump posted on social media.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also congratulated Macron on his election success. "France is one of our closest allies and we look forward to working with the new president on a wide range of shared priorities," she said in a statement.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni also took social media to hail Macron: "Long live #Macron President! There is hope for Europe."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert also congratulated Macron.

"Your victory is a victory for a strong united Europe and for German-French friendship," Seibert posted on social media.

- Political career of Emmanuel Macron -
Macron, a former investment banker, was top adviser on economic issues of outgoing president Francois Hollande from 2012 to 2014, then economy minister in his Socialist government for two years.

He later founded his own political movement 'En Marche!' (On the move) in April last year.

According to Macron, Le Pen wants to take France back to the 1950s while he wants to pull it into the 21st century.

The former economy minister, who has never before run for elected office, is ardently pro-EU and has praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for taking in over a million refugees.

"We are not looking to adapt or reform, but to transform," Macron has vowed.

Macron, 39, becomes the youngest president of France's Fifth Republic.

His presidency will be formally confirmed by mid-May, and followed by two-round legislative elections in June.
-Emmanuel Macron: a 39-year-old political prodigy-

In his unorthodox private life and short political career, France's new president Emmanuel Macron has battled conventions and broken with traditions.

The 39-year-old son of two doctors from the northeastern city of Amiens -- set to be the youngest president in French history -- breaks the mould of a traditional French leader, apart from his elite education in some of the country's best universities.

Firstly, he is married to his former teacher, glamorous 64-year-old Brigitte Trogneux, a divorced mother of three children whom he fell in love with as a schoolboy.

Their relationship has been a subject of fascination, often encouraged by the media-savvy Macron, in French glossy magazines.

He has also charted one of the most unlikely paths to the presidency in modern history, from virtual unknown three years ago to leader with no established political party behind him.

The philosophy, literature and classical music lover launched his independent movement En Marche ("On The Move") only 12 months ago, which he said was "neither of the left nor the right".

This unusual positioning for France, which has seen him borrow economic policies from the right coupled with social measures from the left, was initially met with cynicism.

"There is a left and a right... and that's a good thing, that's how our democracy functions," ex-prime minister Manuel Valls said after En Marche launched. "It would be absurd to want to remove those differences."

Others saw the ambitious former investment banker, who was then economy minister in Socialist President Francois Hollande's government, as too young and too inexperienced to have serious presidential ambitions.

Few apart from his loyal core of advisors believed that he had the ability to triumph in 2017 at the age of 39, a year younger than Napoleon Bonaparte when he took power in 1804.

- Momentum -

But Macron pressed on, using his image as a dynamic young moderniser to draw in thousands of volunteers to En Marche, which was modelled partly on the grassroots movement of ex-US president Barack Obama in 2008.

After resigning from his job as economy minister in August, he set about writing his pre-election book "Revolution" and then finally declared he was running for president on November 16.

"We can't respond with the same men and the same ideas," he said at a jobs training centre in a gritty Parisian suburb.

A giant meeting at a convention centre in southern Paris in December was an early warning to rivals -- and led to widespread mockery of Macron who ended the rally screaming, arms aloft, as he basked in the adoration.

Since then, he has benefited from the woes of the Socialist party and a scandal that engulfed one-time favourite Francois Fillon from the rightwing Republicans party, the other mainstream force in French politics.

Fillon was accused of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros from the public purse for a fake job as a parliamentary assistant -- allegations he denied but which sunk his campaign.

"He's been lucky," veteran political journalist Anne Fulda, who wrote a recent biography called "Emmanuel Macron, Such A Perfect Young Man", told AFP. "That's something that helped him considerably. The stars aligned."

With frustration at France's political class running high, Macron was able to tap into a desire for wholesale change that also propelled his far-right rival Marine Le Pen into Sunday's run-off vote.

- Already hated? -

As a student, Macron worked as an assistant to a famous French philosopher and followed a well-worn path through France's elite public universities including the ENA, which has groomed many leaders.

After first working as a civil servant in the finance ministry, he then went into investment banking, where he earned millions at Rothschild putting together mergers and acquisitions.

Opponents have targeted this period of his career as proof he is part of the "global capitalist elite". His self-assurance, expensive suits and defence of entrepreneurs has offered further ammunition.

"I've spoken with hundreds of people and you can feel it in the air: you are already hated," one far-left critic, Francois Ruffin, wrote last week in an article in Le Monde newspaper.

He is also frequently criticised for being too vague or intellectual in his speeches, which are often long and peppered with literary references or poetry.

While at ease among ordinary voters, Macron has been accused of being condescending in the past, whether referring to "illiterate" abattoir workers, "alcoholic" laid-off workers or the "poor people" who travel on buses.

In an infamous exchange, when confronted by a protester in a T-shirt in May last year, he lost his cool, saying: "The best way to buy yourself a suit is to work."