Le Pen Loses: The French Are Still a Bunch of Idiots

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has lost the French presidential election to centrist Emmanuel Macron. Early exit polls showed Macron with 65.9% of the vote and Le Pen with 34.1%.

The two-round election, which has played out like something of a soap opera, was hit with another scandal, when Macron’s campaign announced it had been the target of a “massive and coordinated” hacking operation.

Around 14.5 gigabytes of emails, personal as well as business documents were posted to the text-sharing site Pastebin hours before the campaign period came to a close Friday night.
Macron’s party said the hackers mixed fake documents with authentic ones “to create confusion” but it still isn’t clear who was behind the attack.

Whoever wins will look forward to elections to the national assembly in June. Macron’s party En Marche! is less than a year old and starting from the ground up. If he does not persuade enough voters to back his candidates, he will have to strike deals with other parties in order to push through his legislative agenda. Le Pen’s Front National has only two members out of 577 in the national assembly.

Macron is a former investment banker who also served as economy minister under President Francois Hollande. Macron has struggled to connect with voters in the rural and de-industrialized areas of the country.

Le Pen has also battled to broaden her appeal, announcing at the end of April that she had temporarily stepped down from her position as leader of the Front National.