Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France on Sunday with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union, early projections showed. Five projections, issued within minutes of polling stations closing at 8.00pm (2.00pm ET), showed Macron beating Le Pen by around 65 percent to 35 -- a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had pointed to. Shortly after the first projections were published, Le Pen, 48, said she had congratulated Macron. When he moves into the Elysee Palace after his inauguration next weekend, Macron will become the eighth -- and youngest -- president of France's Fifth Republic. His election also represents a long-awaited generational change in French politics that have been dominated by the same faces for years.

Source: Egypt Independent May 07, 2017 20:26 UTC