by the islamist group boko haram, meet nigeria s president. france has voted for a new president. emmanuel macron is set to be the youngest ever, in french history. in a televised address, the 39 year old centrist, promised to fight the divisions in his country, re build the links between the eu and its citizens, and to combat threats posed by terrorism and climate change. with results almost counted, projections show mr macron has won more than 66% of the vote sweeping aside the challenge of his far right rival, marine le pen. our coverage begins with this report from our europe editor, katya adler who s in paris. young, dynamic and very, very confident. emmanuel macron, said to be the youngest leader since napoleon took the crowd by storm. translation: in the face of extremism, i know there are disagreements and i will respect this. and i will be faithful to that commitment taken, i will protect the republic. this is an incredible moment. mighty france, an economic and
but in all of it, was this feeling that it would never get better and i now know that that s not true. hello. here in france, round one is over. and after an election campaign of twists and turns, the big surprise was the lack of big surprise. but it is a huge turning point all the same. the established parties became marginalised, in third and fifth place and now the contest comes down to a showdown between nationalistic populism and globalist liberalism. that is the battle being fought across the west. france is now divided down the middle. the radical candidates, who want to overthrow the existing order le pen on the populist right, melenchon on the left, and six fringe candidates as well they got a total of 49.6 per cent of the vote in other words, half. there is an enormous well of discontent out there. for now, emmanuel macron is the man to watch the best hope for a battered establishment of seeing off the radicals. but the twists continue in this campaign ton
Reckon silluate and make reckon silluate and make a reconciliation around the values. people may have been from the le pen camp, le pen s side may have abstained after the dismal debate, dismal performance of the debate, but people on the extreme left of melenchon. so this is one aspect. it s a proof of a constant discontent by a large part of the population for the options that were given to during this election. the other aspect is i was struck and i was very interested by the last part of your conversation about minorities. the question of racism in france and so on. it s been the diversity and the idea of a multicultural france, some kind of a third rail for politics in france.
reporter: well, the le pen camp is hoping that the pollsters are wrong, that there will be a repeat of what happened in the u.s. elections, because right now, the polls put emanuel macron as the clear leader, that they say he will win by a landslide. but we were talking with people from the macron or the le pen camp. they think there will be an unset. as you mentioned, the two candidates couldn t be further apart. in many ways, this is seen as a it wi litmus test. macron is 39 years old, wants to stay in the eu. he isn t part of one of the traditional parties. he has a banking background. he s seen as something of a member of the elite here. he went to the top schools. he s fluent in english. that has been working for and against him. le pen has been trying to hammer against him, saying that he s