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Emmanuel Macron on election day
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JOHANNA GERON / REUTERS
According to initial projections, Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential election.
With 58.2 percent, he was ahead of his competitor, the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen, at the Ipsos Institute. In the extrapolation, she came to 41.8 percent.
It will be a while before an official final result is known.
Polling stations closed at 8 p.m.
Le Pen got more votes than in the last duel between the two.
But it wasn't enough to overtake Macron.
Macron's victory had been expected, and in the polls shortly before the election he had recently been able to increase his lead over Le Pen again.
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Marine Le Pen's electoral successes: Why are the French ticking so extremely? An interview by Katja Iken
It was a fateful vote for the EU.
Le Pen stands for right-wing extremist, nationalist demands, even though she campaigned for a more moderate and bourgeois image.
If she had won the election, she would have taken a confrontational course with the EU. During the election campaign she had promised to put national law above EU law and to renegotiate treaties.
She openly questioned cooperation with Germany.
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