Macron defeats Le Pen in French election – Projections

French President Emmanuel Macron has defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen by a comfortable margin in a runoff election and has won a second term, early projections by pollsters showed.

The first projections showed centrist Macron securing around 57-58 percent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff. Such estimates are normally accurate but may be fine-tuned as official results come in from around the country.

Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Rally party (Rassemblement National or RN), received 41.8 percent of the votes, the highest in her last three unsuccessful presidential bids.

In a victory speech on Sunday ...