Narrow Escape for French as Le Pen Fails

In the French Presidential Elections, in which polling took place all day on Sunday, the initial exit polls predicted that Centre Right candidate Emmauel Macron was in the lead over far right Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party. The turnout was around sixty one per cent, some points down on the previous election five years ago. This was explained by Sky News as being because the left candidates, randing from the centre leftist Partie Socialiste to the various far left Trotskyist groups, had all been knocked out in Round One. However, many left supporters and minority communities including Jewish groups, Muslim groups and LGBTQIA people, had voted for Macron to prevent a victory for the hard right. This is even though Ms Le Pen had attempted to distance herself from her party’s past as a neo-fascist organisation. A letter, appeared in top gay magazine Tetu signed by dozens of French LGBTQIA people, personalities, celebrities and groups, reminded LGBTQIA voters of the dangers of the far right, noting that Ms Le Pen had personal friendships with violently anti-gay politicians the world over and that her party had consistently opposed laws on discrimination and equal rights.