France's next leader: centrist Macron vs. far-right Le Pen

PARIS -- Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen advanced Sunday to a runoff in France's presidential election, remaking the country's political landscape and setting up a showdown over its participation in the European Union.

French politicians on the left and right urged voters to block Le Pen's path to power in the May 7 runoff, saying her nationalist anti- EU and anti-immigration politics would spell disaster for France.

"Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France," defeated conservative candidate Francois Fillon said. "As such, there is no other choice than to vote against the extreme right."

The selection of Le Pen and Macron presented voters with the starkest possible choice between two diametrically opposed visions of the EU's future and France's place in it.

It set up a battle between Macron's optimistic vision of a tolerant France and a united Europe with open borders and Le Pen's darker, inward-looking, "French-first" platform that called for closed borders, tougher security, less immigration and dropping the shared euro currency to return to the French franc.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, surrounded by bodyguards, celebrates with supporters Sunday after exit poll results of the first round of the presidential election were announced at her election headquarters in Henin-Beaumont, northern France.Michel Spingler ~ Associated Press

With Le Pen wanting France to leave the EU and Macron wanting closer cooperation among the bloc's 28 nations, Sunday's outcome meant the May 7 runoff will have undertones of a referendum on France's EU membership.

The absence in the runoff of candidates from either the mainstream left Socialists or the right-wing Republicans party -- the two main political groups that have governed post-war France -- also marked a seismic shift in French politics.

Macron, a 39-year-old investment banker, made the runoff on the back of a grassroots campaign without the support of a major political party.

With 90 percent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Macron had nearly 24 percent, giving him a slight cushion over Le Pen's 22 percent. Fillon, with just under 20 percent, was slightly ahead of the far-left's Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had 19 percent.

The euro jumped 2 percent to more than $1.09 after the initial results were announced because Macron has vowed to reinforce France's commitments to the EU and euro.

With a wink at flag-waving supporters who yelled, "We will win," Macron promised to be a president "who protects, who transforms and builds" if elected.

"You are the faces of French hope," he said. His wife, Brigitte, joined him onstage before his speech -- the only couple among the leading candidates to do so Sunday night.

Le Pen, in a chest-thumping speech to cheering supporters, declared that she embodies "the great alternative" for French voters. She portrayed her duel with Macron as a battle between "patriots" and "wild deregulation" -- warning of job losses overseas, mass migration straining resources at home and "the free circulation of terrorists."

"The time has come to free the French people," she said at her election day headquarters in the northern French town of Henin-Beaumont, adding that nothing short of "the survival of France" will be at stake in the presidential runoff.

Her supporters burst into a rendition of the French national anthem, chanted "We will win!" and waved French flags and blue flags with "Marine President" on them.

France is now steaming into unchartered territory, because whoever wins on May 7 cannot count on the backing of France's political mainstream parties. Even under a constitution that concentrates power in the president's hands, both Macron and Le Pen will need legislators in parliament to pass laws and implement much of their programs.

France's legislative election in June now takes on a vital importance, with huge questions about whether Le Pen and even the more moderate Macron will be able to rally sufficient lawmakers to their causes.

In Paris, protesters angry at Le Pen's advance -- some from anarchist and anti-fascist groups -- scuffled with police. Officers fired tear gas to disperse the rowdy crowd. Police detained three people as demonstrators burned cars, danced around bonfires and dodged riot police. At a peaceful protest by around 300 people at the Place de la Republique some sang "No Marine and No Macron!" and "Now burn your voting cards."

Macron supporters at his Paris election-day headquarters went wild as polling agency projections showed the ex-finance minister making the runoff, cheering, singing "La Marseillaise" anthem, waving French tricolor and European flags and shouting "Macron, president!"

Mathilde Jullien, 23, said she is convinced Macron will beat Le Pen.

"He represents France's future, a future within Europe," she said. "He will win because he is able to unite people from the right and the left against the threat of the National Front and he proposes real solutions for France's economy."

Fillon said he would vote for Macron on May 7 because Le Pen's program "would bankrupt France" and throw the EU into chaos. He also cited the history of "violence and intolerance" of Le Pen's far-right National Front party, founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was trounced in the presidential runoff in 2002.

In a defiant speech to supporters, Melenchon refused to cede defeat before the official count confirmed pollsters' projections and did not say how he would vote in the next round.

In a brief televised message, Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve urged voters to back Macron to defeat the National Front's "funereal project of regression for France and of division of the French."

Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon, who was far behind in Sunday's results, quickly conceded defeat. Declaring "the left is not dead!" he also urged supporters to back Macron.

Voting took place amid heightened security in the first election under France's state of emergency, which has been in place since gun-and-bomb attacks in Paris in 2015. On Thursday, a gunman killed a police officer and wounded two others on Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard before he was fatally shot.