Macron re-elected: French president's victory overshadowed by strong showing from far-right
President Emmanuel Macron beat far-right challenger Marine Le Pen with a solid margin, final
results showed on Monday, but he showed no triumphalism as he acknowledged widespread discontent and all eyes turned to the June parliamentary ballot. FRANCE 24 is joined by Jean Beaman, Sociologist and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara to discuss the surge in support of the far-right, attributing it to France's entire political landscape moving rightward. Marine Le Pen's strong showing in the second round is a reflection of the French politicians and the French electorate espousing more extremist ideologies, explains Dr. Beaman. Islamophobia and racist ideas in France "have become mainstream, and that's just reflected in some of the results we've seen in the election." She owes this recent tilt towards the hard right "to the last five years of Macron and his use of Islamophobic and racist rhetoric in his political discourse." But there is certainly blame to go around, asserts Dr. Beaman. It reveals "a failure of the left to combat this mainstreaming of the far-right ideology, but then also a failure of Macron to sufficiently reach out to people on the left to garner more votes."