France Poll Numbers: Macron Retains Office But Far-Right Le Pen Makes Huge Gains

Video Producer: Naman Shah

Video Editor: Prajjwal Kumar, Purnendu Pritam

While French President Emmanuel Macron secured a second term in office on Sunday, 24 April, his victory over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen was blemished by the tighter margin between their vote shares as compared to the 2017 presidential polls.

This time around, Le Pen's vote share increased by 7.5 percentage points, when compared to the 2017 results.

The shrinkage of the vote share gap becomes significant as Le Pen's results mark the closest a far-right leader has ever come to winning a French presidential race.

Here's how the performances of the two leaders compare when we examine the figures of the 2017 elections with this year's.

Vote Share: Le Pen Makes a Leap in Vote Share as Macron's Figure Shrinks From 2017

Breaching the threshold of 40 percent of the vote in a gain unprecedented for the French far-right, nationalist leader Marine Le Pen locked 41.4 percent of the votes. Her vote share, however, fell short of the 51 percent figure required for majority.

The victor, Macron, secured his throne with 58.6 of the vote share.

In the 2017 presidential polls, the liberal La République En Marche leader had attained 66.10 percent of the votes, enjoying a comfortable majority with two-third of the total share.

His opponent, Le Pen, had managed to garner only half of Macron's vote percentage and a third of the total share with 33.90 percent votes.

Vote Count: Le Pen Up By 26 Lakh Votes Since 2017, Macron Loses 19 Lakh

Macron, who has become the first French president to win a second term in two decades, had a vote count of 1,87,79,809 on Sunday.

Pen, of the National Rally, garnered 1,32,97,728 votes – trailing 54,82,081 votes behind Macron.

In the 2017 presidential elections, Macron had ascended to power with 2,07,43,128 votes. This is 19,63,319 votes more than his tally for this year.

Le Pen, on the other hand, had suffered a significant defeat in 2017. The political leader had managed to secure merely 1,06,38,475 votes – nearly half of her opponent's.

Her vote tally has expanded by 26,59,253 votes in Sunday's polls.