An interpretation of the French elections

Emmanuel Macron should tread carefully as the far right’s Le Pen and the left-wing’s Mélenchon cannot be written off

Who won the French presidential election?

At first glance, the answer to this question seems obvious: the winner was the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, who was re-elected with 58.5% of the vote in the second round of the election on Sunday. But you could be forgiven for thinking that the loser — the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen — also won. On Sunday night she announced that her defeat was a “spectacular victory”.

Even more confusingly, one of the candidates who did not make it to the second round at all — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who represented a coalition of far-left movements — claimed victory on Sunday as well. When he appeared on television, shortly after the results were announced, he explained that he represented the “Third Estate”. This historical reference to the group that initiated the French Revolution in 1789 was a way of saying that, even if he had not won this time, he would win very soon.

Also read | Decoding the 2022 French presidential elections

So what is going on, and why are so many candidates claiming victory?

Let us start with Mr. Macron. Here, at least, there would seem to be little ambiguity. Mr. Macron came top in the first round of the election and won in the second round by a comfortable margin.

However, this was not a foregone conclusion. He survived the nationwide “yellow vests” protest movement in 2018-19, steered France through an unprecedented pandemic, and navigated a major war in Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the election. He secured broad political support throughout this period and managed to retain some of the youthful dynamism of his early presidency.