France's Macron beats Le Pen to win second term

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Sunday by a comfortable margin, securing a second term and heading off what would have been a political earthquake.

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to comfortably win reelection Sunday in a runoff, polling agencies projected, offering France and the European Union the reassurance of leadership stability in the bloc’s only nuclear-armed power as the continent grapples with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A second five-year term for Macron — if confirmed by official results later Sunday — would spare France and its allies in Europe and beyond the seismic upheaval of a wartime shift of power to Macron’s far-right nationalist challenger Marine Le Pen, who quickly acknowledged her defeat.

Her campaign had pledged to dilute French ties with the 27-nation EU, the NATO military alliance and Germany, moves that would have shaken Europe’s security architecture as the continent deals with its worst conflict since World War II. Le Pen also spoke out against sanctions on Russian energy supplies and faced scrutiny during the campaign over her previous friendliness with the Kremlin.

---