Under the Eiffel Tower, the supporters of Emmanuel Macron , who won for the second consecutive time against Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections, sing wrapped in the tricolors.
The vote ends 58 to 42 , with a "score" higher than expected in recent days, but far from 66 to 34 in 2017.
Great disappointment among the supporters of Le Pen, despite the leader immediately proclaiming a "sensational result" promising battle for the June legislative elections.
After sunset, expected by a few thousand supporters, Macron arrived under the Eiffel Tower in a very different atmosphere from that of 5 years ago, when France celebrated its youngest president (39 years) and he measured - alone - the footsteps of the perimeter of the Louvre to the notes of the Ode to Joy. That music, a European symbol, returned to the background last night when Macron approached the stage, no longer alone but hand in hand with Brigitte , surrounded by a group of very young boys.
Then the speech, with the announcement of "a new era" and the promise to "respond to the anger of the country".
He was also applauded by several government ministers, from Jean-Yves Le Drian (Foreign Affairs) to Clément Beaune (European Affairs). Many of them already know - like Prime Minister Jean Castex - that for them the adventure is about to end. Macron promised that the new mandate "will not be a continuation of the past 5 years", marked by deep crises such as that of the Yellow Vests.
The president's first thought on stage, however, was for those who "do not share our ideas" but who voted for him to "block the way to the far right": "In the next few years - he promised - I will be indebted to of them".
France, once again, had to vote in the ballot for a candidate who was a bulwark against the far right. It happened 20 years ago to Jacques Chirac , the last president to be re-elected to the Elysée before Macron, who opposed Marine's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. That was the first time that a leader of the Front National, the far right, reached the second round of the presidential elections and the shock for France was enormous: every day, in the streets of Paris, thousands of people took to the streets to say no to all. ultra right in power.
