President Emmanuel Macron of France has won a second term in office, though with a slimmer margin compared to his 2017 victory.
The 44-year-old beat Marine Le Pen of the National Rally getting 58% of the votes in Sunday’s second and final round of the presidential election.
This is still the biggest ever score by the Far Right in a French presidential contest characterised by a very high rate of abstentions and spoiled ballots.
Macron, who leads the En Marche and was elected as the country’s youngest ever leader five years ago at the age of 39, got 66.1%, in his first election.
Le Pen has improved on her performance from just over 33% in 2017, to 42% of the votes in Sunday’s run-off.
Both Marine Le Pen and the far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who lost out in the first round two weeks ago have vowed to take their revenge on President Macron in the parliamentary elections which will hold in June.
(Additional information from the BBC)
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
