Watch: Everything you wanted to know about Macron’s French victory in six delectable videos
A blooper, a comedy sketch, the victory speech and more. All the action around France’s youngest president since 1851.
On Monday, France got its youngest president since 1851, as Emmanuel Macron won with a huge 66.66% of votes. The swelling support for the 39-year-old independent candidate is being seen as a rebuttal to the politics and principles of his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen.
Pen had previously compared her rival to Hollywood action star Jean Claude Van Damme for Macron’s pithy statements – from the tautological “A woman who is pregnant, she’s aware that she’s expecting a child,” to the perplexing “I am fascinated by air. If you remove air, birds would fall from the sky. Planes too. But you can’t touch it.”
That was not all. Lampooning his nature to appeal to voters of all stripes, a sketch (video above) from a French comedy show had Macron do a Van Damme-sque split atop two trucks, one labelled “Socialist” and the other, “Republican”.
Social media artists, meanwhile, were quite fixated on the one letter difference between the French president’s last name and the French confection, the macaron.
I keep reading Emmanuel Macron's name as "Macaron," which would actually be a better last name for a French president, let's be honest.
— Jodi Westrick (@jodilyn) May 8, 2017
Do u think it's a coincidence that Macron is one letter away from macaron? I do not. pic.twitter.com/OWCO7Yutf2
— Nayomi with a Y (@nayomir) May 7, 2017
The moment when your phone autocorrects 'Macron' to 'macaron' and you decided to go out, get some cookies instead of following the election😂
— Beybin Somuk (@bybns) May 7, 2017
This is a Macron Macaron. pic.twitter.com/WBz3nutjZR
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) May 7, 2017
So we thought this was the best way to celebrate Macron's win. Congrats France! You've made the free world proud! #FrenchElection 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/qCDPAYCbT8
— Laura (@SheWhoVotes) May 7, 2017
The spelling errors and Macaron memes grew s much that an explanation was needed to put things in order.
Reminder:
— Andrew Joe Potter 🍍 (@AndrewJoePotter) May 8, 2017
A Macaron is a french confectionery.
A Macron is a French president.
A Macaroon is a coconut cluster.
A little over an hour after winning the presidency, Macron addressed his supporters in front of the Louvre in Paris. He said he would “fight against inequalities, ensure security and the unity of the nation” and that he would defend France and Europe and “the common fate that countries of our continent have given themselves”.
What would an election be without a candid shot or two? A blooper allowed millions of viewers a glimpse of the President-elect’s makeup being retouched as he practised his victory speech...all thanks to the television cameras going live ahead of schedule.
For everything else that happened on election night, here’s a 90-minute highlight, from Macron fans chanting his name to Le Pen’s press conference saying she had called her rival to congratulate him.
Here’s a 360-degree view of the celebrations.
A message Macron recorded in February, with a far-from-subtle dig at US president Donald Trump, went viral after the election. “Please come to France, you are welcome,” he told American researchers in the video below. “It’s your nation; we like innovation. We want innovative people. We want people working on climate change, energy, renewables, and new technologies.” On Monday, Macron told his American counterpart in a phone call that he would defend a climate change agreement signed in 2015 in Paris.