French President Emmanuel Macron has seen off his far-right rival Marine Le Pen to secure five years more years at the helm of Europe’s second economy. But the narrowing margin of victory and an increasingly polarised nation herald another rocky term for the incumbent, whose success was tarnished by the lowest turnout in half a century.
Macron, 44, is the first president to secure re-election since Jacques Chirac 20 years ago. His back-to-back wins are no small feat in a country that has recently developed a taste for kicking out the incumbent at the first opportunity. It helped that on both occasions he faced a political force that a (shrinking) majority of the French still considers unfit for government.
