Le Pen Crushes Macron

Macron at a polling station. Photographer: Yara Nardi/AFP/Getty Images

If he had hoped that record turnount meant the French had come to their senses to rally behind him to keep the far right out, then he was proven wrong — not that the proud leader would admit to it.

Macron has repeatedly argued that his decision to hold an early vote was the right call. But to most observers it looks rash if not downright reckless.

All he conceded tonight was a short written statement where Macron said that "confronted by the National Rally, it is time for a large, clearly democratic and republican alliance for the second round."

Over in her constituency of Henin-Beaumont, an old coal-mining town near the border with Belgium, the 55-year-old far-right leader stretched her arms wide open, smiled broadly and told her cheering supporters that Macron's centrist party had been "practically wiped out." She is now gunning for an absolute majority in the second round on July 7 and if she gets it, Macron will be left with no choice but to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with her.

The question now is what are the run-off tactics. Macron and his allies could be trying to break up the leftist New Popular Front and pick off support there. As things stand, Le Pen is at the gates of power.

"Have you seen this evening's declarations, as though Mrs Le Pen and Mr Bardella were already at the highest level of the state?," howled former president Francois Hollande. "The president seems to have been erased, the majority is in tatters."

— Flavia Krause-Jackson