Emmanuel Macron’s victory was seen as a victory for European Union supporters – AFP picPARIS, May 11 – Emmanuel Macron’s start-up political party was to announce today the names of several hundred candidates to do battle in a French parliamentary election that will decide how much power the centrist president-elect will enjoy once in office.
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But he faces a tall order to convert his victory into the majority he needs to implement his ambitious agenda of labour, welfare and education reforms.
Emmanuel Macron has won a resounding victory in the French presidential election but the focus will shift immediately to whether he can govern the country without the support of a traditional party.
Benoit Hamon, who as the Socialist presidential candidate finished fifth in the first round of the election, said he planned to launch a new leftwing movement.
A representative of Republic On the Move said Wednesday that Valls had “not yet” fulfilled the criteria to be a candidate.
A former Socialist prime minister of Portugal, Guterres won backing early on from French President Francois Hollande in the race to be United Nations chief. Macron is working to obtain a majority in the lower house of parliament in June elections.
In the final vote results from the interior ministry, Macron won 66.1 per cent of the vote against 33.9 per cent for Le Pen.
But EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici, who was finance minister under Hollande from 2012-14, urged his party not to establish itself as Macron’s opposition.
Following the election of Emmanuel Macron as France’s new President, the Consul General of France in Mumbai, Yves Perrin, said his country was open to hosting more Indian students.
Macron wins French presidency but hurdles remain in campaign to governEmmanuel Macron steps into his new role as France’s President-elect.
Polling suggests that En Marche and another centrist party, Modem, are now the choice of a narrow plurality-26 percent-of French voters, while Le Pen’s party, the National Front, comes in at 22 percent.
Macron’s camp has not embraced Valls, however. The former prime minister’s move was harshly criticized by the PS.
His victory was the third-straight defeat for far-right populist parties in Europe, following losses in the Netherlands in March and in Austria last December. The broader movement also has more opportunities to make gains with elections coming later this year in Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Portugal, among others.
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“France now has an opportunity to both provide a real source of support to Guterres and possibly to step into a leadership role with Germany, Canada, Britain and a few others”, said Bathsheba Crocker, a former USA assistant secretary of state for worldwide organizations affairs. “The UK, we need to ensure we’ve got an equally strong mandate and an equally strong negotiating position”. Yes, at least in France, though on the global level we can expect the continuation of the tug-of-war between those trying to profit from the clash of democracy and globalization and those who insist on maintaining the established regime and playing by its rules.
