Macron, Le Pen on course for French runoff as Fillon concedes

Emmanuel Macron supporters react as the first partial official results and polling agencies projections are announced

Supporters of far-right leader and candidate for the French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, celebrate

National Front leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are on course to qualify for the second round of France’s tightly fought presidential election after Republican candidate Francois Fillon conceded defeat.  Fillon called on supporters to support centrist Macron against the far-right leader Le Pen.

The selection of Le Pen and Macron presents voters with the starkest possible choice between two diametrically opposed visions of the European Union’s future andFrance’s place in it.

With Le Pen wanting France to leave the EU, and Macron wanting even closer cooperation between the bloc’s 28 member states, the projected outcome Sunday means the presidential runoff would have undertones of a referendum on France’s EU membership.

It also represents a seismic shift in the French political landscape, with neither of the candidates from the mainstream left Socialists or the right-wing Republicans party — which have governed post-war France — making the runoff.

Pollsters projected that conservative former Prime Minister Francois Fillon was trailing the two leading candidates and that Socialist Benoit Hamon was far behind. Hamon quickly conceded defeat but declared “the left is not dead” and urged supporters to back Macron.

Voting took place amid heightened security in the first election under France’s state of emergency, which has been in place since gun-and-bomb attacks in Paris in 2015.

Macron supporters went wild at the announce of the polling agency projections, cheering, singing “La Marseillaise” anthem, waving French tricolor and European flags and shouting “Macron, president!”.

Le Pen supporters were equally enthusiastic. “We will win!” Le Pen supporters chanted in her election day headquarters in Henin-Beaumont. They burst into a rendition of the French national anthem, and waved French flags and blue flags with “Marine President” inscribed on them.

Mathilde Jullien, 23, said she is convinced Macron will be able to win over Le Pen and become France’s next president.

“He represents France’s future, a future within Europe,” she said. “He will win because he is able to unite people from the right and the left against the threat of the National Front and he proposes real solutions for France’s economy.” MDT/Agencies