Macron defeats Marine le Pen for another five-year term in France

THIS JUST IN – The Ministry of Interior of France has announced the preliminary results of the run-off election between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far right challenger Marine le Pen and Macron has successfully pushed back her challenge

The preliminary results have Macron winning 58% of the votes to Marine le Pen’s 42% to book another five-year term for the now face of France.

Leading into the run-off, even conservative dailies endorsed Macron and encouraged voters to return him to pursue the national unity policy and also stay the course in light of the conflict to their east between Russia and Ukraine.

Neither candidate had yet spoken at the time of going to press.

More on this developing story.

DNT News, with correspondence reports from Hon. Osei Mensah, Paris

………………………………………………………………

Beijing kicks off mass testing after spike in Covid cases

The Chinese capital Beijing has kicked off mass testing for millions of residents after a spike in Covid cases.

The Chaoyang district reported 26 cases over the weekend – the highest number so far in Beijing’s latest surge.

Long queues outside supermarkets and shops were seen despite government assurance of a sufficient food supply.

It comes amid fears that Beijing could face a similar situation to Shanghai, which has seen some 25 million people shut in their homes for weeks.

All 3.5 million residents in the city’s largest Chaoyang district will undergo three rounds of mass testing, according to a notice by the city’s disease prevention team.

The news prompted residents to rush to stock up essential supplies, with images circulating on local media showing supermarket shelves emptied of goods and snaking queues at check-out counters.

Beijing’s major supermarkets also extended their opening hours to accommodate the spike in demand.

A supermarket in Beijing

“Never thought I would go to the market early in the morning….when I got there, all the eggs and prawns were gone and all the meat was snatched up,” said one Weibo user in Shanghai, before adding they managed to get some vegetables.

Another Weibo user in Shanghai said: “Seeing people in Beijing rush to buy food is both funny and distressing… its like looking at what my own life was like just last month.”

State-media news outlet The Global Times said that Beijing’s fresh food companies have been ordered to increase the supply of groceries like meat, poultry eggs and vegetables.

They also quoted health experts as saying that the results of the mass testing would indicate whether there is a need to escalate measures further, such as locking down several areas.

Separately, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, told state-media outlet China Daily that the number of cases in Beijing is expected to increase in the following days.

The latest outbreak in Shanghai, first detected in late March, has seen more than 400,000 cases recorded so far and 138 deaths.

Some of the measures Chinese authorities have enforced include placing electronic door alarms to prevent those infected from leaving and forcibly evacuating people from their homes to carry out disinfection procedures.

Some in locked-down areas of Shanghai say they have been struggling to access food supplies, and forced to wait for government drop-offs of vegetables, meat and eggs.

Green barricades have also been erected overnight in parts of Shanghai without prior warning, effectively preventing residents from leaving their homes.

In contrast to many other countries, China is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy with the aim of eradicating the virus from the country completely.

While officials managed to keep infection levels relatively low at the beginning of the pandemic, later lockdowns have struggled to contain more recent, transmissible variants of the virus.

………………………………………………………………

Home Business International U.S. promises more aid, return of diplomats in Kyiv visit

American Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday after a secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is committed to winning his country’s fight against Russia and that the United States will help him achieve that goal.

“He has the mindset that they want to win, and we have the mindset that we want to help them win,” Austin told reporters in Poland, the day after the three-hour face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy in Ukraine.

Austin said that the nature of the fight in Ukraine had changed now that Russia has pulled away from the wooded northern regions to focus on the eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Because the nature of the fight has evolved, so have Ukraine’s military needs, and Zelenskyy is now focused on more tanks, artillery and other munitions.

“The first step in winning is believing that you can win,” Austin said. “We believe that they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support, and we’re going to do everything we can … to ensure that gets to them.”

The trip by Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was the highest-level American visit to the capital since Russia invaded in late February.

They told Zelenskyy and his advisers that the U.S. would provide more than $300 million in foreign military financing and had approved a $165 million sale of ammunition.

“We had an opportunity to demonstrate directly our strong ongoing support for the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people,” Blinken said. “This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there, to have face-to-face conversations in detail.”

Blinken said their meeting with the Ukrainians lasted for three hours for wide ranging talks, including what help the country needs in the weeks ahead.

“The strategy that we’ve put in place, massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts is having real results,” Blinken said.

“When it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence. That has failed.”

Asked about what the U.S. sees as success, Austin said that “we want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory, we want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.”

They also said Biden would soon announce his nominee to be ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, and that American diplomats who left Ukraine before the war would start returning to the country this coming week. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will remain closed for the moment.

…………………………………………………………

French election result: Macron defeats Le Pen and vows to unite divided France

Emmanuel Macron has won five more years as France’s president after a convincing victory over rival Marine Le Pen, who nevertheless secured the far right’s highest share of the vote yet.

He won by 58.55% to 41.45%, a greater margin than expected.

The centrist leader told jubilant supporters at the foot of the Eiffel Tower that now the election was over he would be a “president for all”.

He is the first sitting president in 20 years to be re-elected.

Despite her loss, Ms Le Pen, 53, said her significant vote share still marked a victory.

The ideas her National Rally represented had reached new heights, she told her supporters. But far-right rival Eric Zemmour pointed out that she had ultimately failed, just like her father who preceded her: “It’s the eighth time the Le Pen name has been hit by defeat.”

Marine Le Pen took over the party founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011 in a bid to make it electable. She won more than 13 million votes on Sunday, on a platform of tax cuts to tackle the high cost of living, a ban on wearing the Muslim headscarf in public and a referendum on immigration controls.

“An answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right,” Mr Macron said in his victory speech. “It will be my responsibility and that of those around me.



More than one in three voters did not vote for either candidate. Turnout was just under 72%, the lowest in a presidential run-off since 1969, and more than three million people cast spoilt or blank votes.

Much of France was on holiday on the day of the vote, but the low turnout also reflected the apathy of voters who complained neither candidate represented them. Voters who said they were casting blank ballots told the BBC they wanted to punish the sitting president.

Anti-Macron demonstrators rallied in a number of cities, including Paris, Rennes, Toulouse and Nantes, refusing to accept the result. In his speech Mr. Macron, 44, said his government would have to “answer their choice to refuse to choose”.

Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was narrowly beaten by Ms Le Pen in the first round of voting two weeks before, was scathing about both candidates.While it was good news France had refused to place its trust in Marine Le Pen, he claimed that Mr Macron had been elected with a worse result than any other president. “He floats in an ocean of abstentions, and blank and spoiled ballots.”

Mr. Macron’s victory was welcomed by relieved European leaders, who had feared a far-right candidate offering a series of anti-EU policies.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was first to congratulate him, singling out their mutual challenge in responding to Russia’s war on Ukraine. US President Joe Biden also said he looked forward to “close co-operation” including on supporting Ukraine.

……………………………………………………………