Riot police attack crowd as protesters take to the streets after Macron’s win – World News

France’s incumbent President Emmanuel Macron received 58.2% of the vote, compared to 41.8% for far-right candidate Le Pen

Demonstrators took to the streets in France after President Emmanuel Macron was re-elected.

Riot police attacked and sprayed tear gas on demonstrators in central Paris who protested afterwards
President Emmanuel Macron was re-elected on Sunday, social media footage showed.

According to images on Twitter, the police tried to break up a group of mostly young people who had gathered in the central Chatelet neighborhood to protest.

Macron defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a runoff election earlier Sunday, winning a second five-year term and preventing what would otherwise have been a key politician
upset.

Although Macron won by a comfortable margin, the abstention rate was expected to settle at its highest level since 1969, as a sizeable proportion of voters would be unwilling to vote for either Macron
or Le Pen.

Between the first ballot and Sunday’s runoff, students protested in front of the Sorbonne in Paris and other universities, expressing their disillusionment with the election on offer.

According to official forecasts, Macron is on course to win the French presidential election.

The incumbent received 58.2% of the vote, compared to 41.8% for far-right candidate Le Pen.

Exit polls are always extremely accurate in France, meaning major broadcasters and other media outlets called the Macron victory as soon as the polls closed.

Macron celebrated the release of the exit polls with a rally at the Eiffel Tower tonight.

Supporters in Paris began chanting “Five more years!” in response to the projections.

In an ambitious victory speech, Mr Macron said: “From now on I am no longer a party candidate. I’m everyone’s president!’

He acknowledged that France was “full of anger and division” but promised: “No one will be left behind”.