French Elections

Last night we had the electoral results for the first round of voting for the French Presidency. Centrist Emmanuel Macron has gone through to the second round of the French election where he will face far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Mr Macron won 23.8% of votes in the first round while Ms Le Pen took 21.5%.

The fact that Macron and Le Pen have made it through to the second round was in line with the most likely scenario for the last several weeks and is a big market positive given their head-to-head polling numbers, however over a longer-term horizon it’s another political shockwave as the other two mainstream party candidates have been eliminated in the first round.

This was a big anti-establishment vote and it now appears that Macron is well on course to becoming the next leader of France as few give Le Pen any chance of victory against him on the 7^th of May.

A major issue is that Marcon has no seats in the national assembly and Le Pen, albeit not a favourite now, has 2.

There will have to be some inter party talks and no doubt some concessions on future policy, but how does this effect immigration, taxation and their EU status?

The Euro is still at risk of potential meltdown and if there is an upset in France the chance on contagion for other member states like Italy could be round the corner.