Jews hail Macron’s landslide win as “victory over hate”

(JTA) — Emmanuel Macron, the centrist candidate in the French presidential elections, beat the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen 65 percent to 34 percent in the final round Sunday, according to exit polls.
The result marks both the best electoral result ever obtained by Le Pen’s National Front party — which leaders of French Jewry have said poses a threat to democracy and their community — and the first time in decades that a majority of French voters elected as president an independent candidate coming from outside one of the country’s main political parties.
Macron received the explicit endorsement of leaders and institutions of French Jews as well as Muslim and some Christian ones after he and Le Pen made it to the second and final round. Macron received 23 percent of the vote in the first round two weeks ago, with Le Pen trailing him by two points.
“We remain extremely concerned by the still large support for parties of the far right, not only in France but across Europe,” the president of European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, said in a statement.

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