Ripping up France’s political map, French voters elected centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s youngest president ever Sunday, delivering a resounding victory to the pro-European former investment banker and strengthening France’s place as a central pillar of the EU.

‍Macron won by 66.06 percent of the vote, final results released by the Interior Ministry showed. Exit polls had predicted that Macron would beat Le Pen by 65.9 percent, very close to the final result.

A jubilant crowd of Macron supporters roared with delight at the news, waving red, white and blue tricolor flags at a victory party outside the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Marine Le Pen, his far-right opponent in the presidential runoff, quickly called the 39-year-old Macron to concede defeat after voters rejected her “French-first” nationalism by a large margin. Macron, in a solemn televised victory speech, vowed to heal the social divisions exposed by France’s acrimonious election campaign and bring “hope and renewed confidence” to the country.

“A new page in our long history is opening,” he declared.

Macron’s victory marked the third time in six months — following elections in Austria and the Netherlands — that European voters shot down far-right populists who wanted to restore borders across Europe. The election of a French president who championed European unity could also strengthen the EU’s hand in its complex divorce proceedings with Britain.

Minutes after the last polls closed Sunday night, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced Macron’s victory.

“(This) testifies to the lucidity of the voters, who rejected the deadly project of the extreme right,” Cazeneuve said.

Many French voters backed Macron reluctantly, not because they agreed with his politics but simply to keep the far-right Le Pen and her National Front party out, fearing its long anti-Semitic and racist history.

Le Pen has congratulated Macron on his victory. She also said her National Front Party has created a "massive" result in the runoff, and promised major change for her party. 

After the most closely watched and unpredictable French presidential campaign in recent memory, many voters rejected the runoff choice altogether. Pollsters projected that French voters cast blank or spoiled ballots in record numbers Sunday.

Macron now becomes not only France’s youngest-ever president but also one of its most unlikely. Until now, modern France had been governed either by the Socialists or the conservatives — but both Macron and Le Pen upended that right-left political tradition.

(Source: AP)