PARIS— Emmanuel Macron comfortably defeated far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the second round of France’s presidential election, winning 58.55% of the votes against 41.45% for Le Pen, final interior ministry figures showed on Monday.
Those figures compared to Macron’s first victory in 2017, when Macron won 66.1% of the vote against 33.9% for Le Pen five years ago.
The abstention rate was 28.1% against 25.4% in 2017, marking the lowest turnout ever recorded in a French presidential election final since 1969.
—Reporting by Myriam Rivet and Dominique Vidalon;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta
