Ivan Duque's congratulations to Emmanuel Macron after his victory in the French presidential elections

Colombian President Iván Duque congratulated the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who won against his rival, the far-right Marine Le Pen, in the second round of the presidential elections held this Sunday, April 24. This would be the second time that the French president has beaten the candidate of the National Front Party Movement for France, with the difference that this year she lost 8% of her past voters.

“We congratulate the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, on his re-election, a great friend of Colombia and defender of democratic values; with whom we will continue to work for the protection of the environment, security and the strengthening of our cooperative relations,” Duque said in a message on his official account of Twitter.

In addition, Duque accompanied his message with a photograph of both of them posing with their index index raised during one of the meetings they had. It should be noted that the president's tweet already has hundreds of comments, more than 500 shares and nearly 3,000 likes; in addition, he also made the same trill in French.

In the second round of the presidential elections Macron won 58.56% of the valid votes cast at the end of April 24, in the count at the beginning there was great uncertainty as the candidates had a similar number of voters, but 40 minutes before the count was over Emmanuel Macron began to take an advantage significant and won for the second time the victory against the French far right.

In total, the French president won 18.7 million votes in his favor, compared to the 13.2 million won by his rival, Marine Le Pen, who after the results alerted his voters not to obtain the majorities in the legislative elections, In March Democratic Movement.

According to Europa Express, data from the Ministry of the Interior put the participation rate close to 72 per cent, so abstention would be 28 per cent, the highest since 1969. 4.7% of the voters who have participated have voted blank, while 1.6% correspond to invalid votes.

For his part, the president gave his speech and thanked his voters for the trust they placed in him: “After five years of transformation, of happy and difficult hours (...) this April 24, 2022, a majority has made the decision to trust me,” he noted and added: “From now on, I am no longer the candidate of a group, but the president of all”.

He added, in turn, that he knows the responsibility that his victory brings and is committed to continuing to fulfill his duties and respect the democratic differences that exist in his country. Even though the president of the center took the majorities, after his victory the followers of Le Pen took to the streets to protest against the results.

“I am aware that this vote obliges me for the coming years, I am the repository of their sense of duty, of their attachment to the republic and of respect for the differences that have been expressed in recent weeks,” he said.

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