President Emmanuel Macron was run close by his nationalist rival Marine Le Pen in the first round of the French election on Sunday. The runoff vote on April 24 will reprise their 2017 contest, with serious consequences for Europe.
The two candidates represent very different visions, but they collectively represent a challenge from France’s old establishment parties of the right and left, which took a shellacking on Sunday.
In a Twitter Spaces conversation, Bloomberg Opinion’s Paris-based columnist Lionel Laurent and London-based Therese Raphael unpacked the first round — and teed up the second — with Bobby Ghosh. This is an edited transcript.
