Macron wins France's presidential election

Emmanuel Macron has won France's presidential election, fending off a historic challenge from far-right candidate Marine Le Pen during Sunday's runoff vote.

Macron took 58.55% of Sunday's vote, making him the first French leader to be reelected in 20 years. He and Le Pen advanced to the runoff after finishing in first and second place, respectively, among 12 candidates who ran in the first round on April 10.

While the contest was a rematch of the 2017 French presidential runoff, much of Europe watched the election with unease. A Le Pen presidency would have fundamentally changed France's relationship with the European Union and the West, at a time when the bloc and its allies rely on Paris to take a leading role in confronting some of the world's biggest challenges -- most notably, the war in Ukraine.

And though Macron's pitch to voters of a globalized, economically liberal France at the head of a muscular European Union won out over Le Pen's vision for a radical shift inward, the 41.45% of people who voted for her put the French far right closer to the presidency than ever before.