French presidential election: Le Pen, Macron win first round to advance to runoff

Macron, Le Pen to face each other in May 7 runoff vote

French politics was shaken to its core Sunday as far-right populist Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron advanced to a runoff presidential election after the first round of voting.
As it became clear that Le Pen would be one of the top two vote-getters, her rivals on the left and right urged voters to block her path to power in the May 7 runoff, saying her virulently nationalist anti-EU and anti-immigration politics would spell disaster for France.

"Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to France," defeated conservative candidate Francois Fillon said. "As such, there is no other choice than to vote against the extreme right."

With 90 percent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Macron had nearly 24 percent, giving him a slight cushion over Le Pen's 22 percent. Fillon, with just under 20 percent, was slightly ahead of the far-left's Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had 19 percent.
The selection of Le Pen and Macron marked the first time in the 59-year history of the French Fifth Republic that neither of the country's two main parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, made the second round of presidential balloting. Macron, a 39-year-old investment banker, made the runoff on the back of a grassroots campaign without the support of a major political party.
With Le Pen wanting France to leave the EU and Macron wanting even closer cooperation between the bloc's 28 nations, Sunday's outcome meant the May 7 runoff will have undertones of a referendum on France's EU membership.

The euro jumped 2 percent to more than $1.09 after the initial results were announced because Macron has vowed to reinforce France's commitments to the EU and euro -- and opinion polls give him a big lead heading into the second round.
While Le Pen faces the runoff as the underdog, it's already stunning that she brought her once-taboo party so close to the Elysee Palace. She hopes to win over far-left and other voters angry at the global elite and distrustful of the untested Macron.
Le Pen, in a chest-thumping speech to cheering supporters, declared that she embodies "the great alternative" for French voters. She portrayed her duel with Macron as a battle between "patriots" and "wild deregulation" -- warning of job losses overseas, mass migration straining resources at home and "the free circulation of terrorists."
"The time has come to free the French people," she said at her election day headquarters in the northern French town of Henin-Beaumont, adding that nothing short of "the survival of France" will be at stake in the presidential runoff.
Her supporters burst into a rendition of the French national anthem, chanted "We will win!" and waved French flags and blue flags with "Marine President" on them.

With a wink at his cheering, flag-waving supporters who yelled "We will win!" in his election day headquarters in Paris, Macron promised to be a president "who protects, who transforms and builds" if elected.

"You are the faces of French hope," he said. His wife, Brigitte, joined him on stage before his speech -- the only couple among the leading candidates to do so on Sunday night.
France is now steaming into unchartered territory, because whoever wins on May 7 cannot count on the backing of France's political mainstream parties. Even under a constitution that concentrates power in the president's hands, both Macron and Le Pen will need legislators in parliament to pass laws and implement much of their programs.

France's legislative election in June now takes on a vital importance, with huge questions about whether Le Pen and even the more moderate Macron will be able to rally sufficient lawmakers to their causes.

In Paris, protesters angry at Le Pen's advance -- some from anarchist and anti-fascist groups -- scuffled with police. Officers fired tear gas to disperse the rowdy crowd. Two people were injured and police detained three people as demonstrators burned cars, danced around bonfires and dodged riot police. At a peaceful protest by around 300 people at the Place de la Republique some sang "No Marine and no Macron!" and "Now burn your voting cards."

Macron supporters at his Paris election-day headquarters went wild as polling agency projections showed the ex-finance minister making the runoff, cheering, singing "La Marseillaise" anthem, waving French tricolor and European flags and shouting "Macron, president!"

Mathilde Jullien, 23, said she is convinced Macron will beat Le Pen.

"He represents France's future, a future within Europe," she said. "He will win because he is able to unite people from the right and the left against the threat of the National Front and he proposes real solutions for France's economy."

Fillon, the Republican candidate said he would vote for Macron on May 7 because Le Pen's program "would bankrupt France" and throw the EU into chaos. He also cited the history of "violence and intolerance" of Le Pen's far-right National Front party, founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was trounced in the presidential runoff in 2002.

In a defiant speech to supporters, Melenchon refused to cede defeat before the official count confirmed pollsters' projections and did not say how he would vote in the next round.

In a brief televised message, Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve urged voters to back Macron to defeat the National Front's "funereal project of regression for France and of division of the French."

Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon, who was far behind in Sunday's results, quickly conceded defeat. Declaring "the left is not dead!" he also urged supporters to back Macron.

Voting took place amid heightened security in the first election under France's state of emergency, which has been in place since gun-and-bomb attacks in Paris in 2015. On Thursday, a gunman killed a police officer and wounded two others on Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard before he was fatally shot.

Congress returns, aiming to avert government shutdown, pass ObamaCare overhaul

Congress returns to Washington this week to take on the now-familiar task of passing an 11th-hour spending bill to avert a government shutdown, with President Trump’s promised border wall emerging this time as the big sticking point between Democrats and Republicans.
Trump tweeted several times about the issue Sunday, with one tweet saying Democrats don't want budget money paying for the wall "despite the fact it will stop drugs and very bad MS-13 gang members."
The deadline to avert a shutdown is Saturday, Trump's 100th day in office, which has increased pressure on the GOP-controlled Congress to also pass an ObamaCare repeal and replacement plan after failing to do so in March.
Congress OKs Planned Parenthood funding crackdown, as Pence breaks tie
In exchange for funding Trump's planned wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, congressional Democrats want any ObamaCare overhaul bill to continue to include subsides for health insurance companies that helped low-income people afford health policies.
The payments are a critical subsidy and the subject of a lawsuit by House Republicans. Trump has threatened to withhold the money to force Democrats to negotiate on health legislation.
Though Republicans have control of Congress, they have yet to send the GOP president a single major bill, such as an ObamaCare overhaul.
In addition to the wall, Trump also hopes to use the $1 trillion catchall spending bill to salvage victories on a multibillion-dollar down payment on a Pentagon buildup and perhaps a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement by federal authorities.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has indicated that his priority is avoiding a politically unpopular shutdown, like the one in fall 2013 over ObamaCare funding, for which voters largely blamed Republicans.
“I don’t think anyone thinks a shutdown is desirable,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Rank-and-file Republicans received few answers Saturday on conference call by top House GOP leaders, who said deals remained elusive on both health care and the spending measure, with no votes scheduled yet.
A temporary measure could be needed to prevent a shutdown and buy time for more talks.
Democratic support will be needed to pass the spending measure, as Republicans fear taking the blame again if the government shuts down on their watch.
"We have the leverage and they have the exposure," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California, told fellow Democrats on Thursday on a conference call, according to a senior Democratic aide.
Pelosi wants the spending bill to give the cash-strapped government of Puerto Rico help with its Medicaid obligations. Democrats are also pressing for money for overseas famine relief, treatment for opioid abuse, and the extension of health benefits for 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families.
Mulvaney also told Fox News on Sunday: “We are offering to give Democrats some of their priorities. They made it very clear that they want these cost-sharing reduction payments as part of ObamaCare. We don't like those very much, but we have offered to open the discussions to give the Democrats something they want in order to get something we want.”
The White House and Democrats each have adopted hard-line positions on Trump's $1 billion request for a down payment on construction of the border wall, a central plank of last year's campaign.
Talk of forcing Mexico to pay for it has largely been abandoned. But in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Trump stopped short of demanding that money for the project be included in the must-pass spending bill.
GOP leaders have shown no desire to revisit ObamaCare until they're assured they have enough votes to succeed, a point Ryan reiterated to lawmakers Saturday, according to participants in the call.
An initial attempt in March ended in a legislative train wreck, stinging Trump and Ryan. The measure would have repealed much of Obama's 2010 overhaul and replaced it with fewer coverage requirements and less generous federal subsidies for many people.
Two leaders of the House GOP's warring moderate and conservative factions devised a compromise during the recess to let states get federal waivers to ignore some requirements of the health law. Those include one that now requires insurers to cover specified services such as for mental health, and one that bars them from raising premiums on seriously ill patients.
But there are widespread doubts that the new attempt has achieved the support it needs.
Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., an opponent of the bill, said last week that "it doesn't cure the issues that I had concerns" about. The moderate said his objections included changes to Obama's law that would still leave people with excessive out-of-pocket costs.
The potential amendment was brokered by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the conservative House Freedom Caucus and Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., a leader of the moderate House Tuesday Group.

Trump discusses North Korea tensions with Asian leaders

President Trump talked to both leaders of China and Japan Monday as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have boiled over and North Korea appears ready to for an ICBM launch.
Trump spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
China’s official broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi telling Trump that China strongly opposed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and hoped “all parties will exercise restraint and avoid aggravating the situation.” Trump hopes China could increase pressure on its isolated ally instead of using military options or trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Trump and Abe agreed to urge North Korea to refrain from provocative actions.
"The North Korean nuclear and missile problem is an extremely serious security threat to not only the international community but also our country," Abe told reporters after the phone call with Trump.
Meanwhile, U.S. commercial satellite images indicated increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, while Kim has said that the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry has said the North appears ready to conduct such "strategic provocations" at any time. South Korean Acting Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has instructed his military to strengthen its "immediate response posture" in case the North does something significant on the April 25 anniversary of its military. North Korea often marks significant dates by displaying military capability.
North Korea separately fired what U.S. officials said were a Scud-type missile and a midrange missile earlier this month, but the launches were analyzed as failures.
In a statement released late Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry accused Trump of driving the region into an "extremely dangerous phase" with his sending of the aircraft carrier and said the North was ready to stand up against any kind of threated posed by the United States.
With typical rhetorical flourish, the ministry said North Korea "will react to a total war with an all-out war, a nuclear war with nuclear strikes of its own style and surely win a victory in the death-defying struggle against the U.S. imperialists."

UC Berkeley Student Protest Cartoons

UC Berkeley students threaten to sue over Ann Coulter visit

Students at the University of California at Berkeley who invited conservative commentator Ann Coulter to speak on campus are threatening to sue the university if it does not find a proper time and venue for her to speak next week.
Harmeet Dhillon, who represents the Berkeley College Republicans, said in letters sent Friday to UC Berkeley’s Interim Vice Chancellor Stephen Sutton and chief attorney Christopher Patti that if Coulter is not allowed to give a speech on campus on April 27 she will file a lawsuit in federal court because the university is violating the students’ constitutional right to free speech.
"It is a sad day indeed when the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, is morphing before our eyes into the cemetery of free speech on college campuses," Dhillon wrote.
School officials told the Berkeley College Republicans on Tuesday, and the nonpartisan Bridge USA which coordinated the event, that it was being cancelled due to security concerns.
Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks said that police have "very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker," her audience and protesters if the event goes ahead next Thursday.
Officials offered an afternoon event on May 2, when they can offer an "appropriate, protectable venue" but Coulter rejected it, saying she is not available that day. She also tweeted, "THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2." The period is known as Dead Week, when students are studying for final exams.
"You cannot impose arbitrary and harassing restrictions on the exercise of a constitutional right," Coulter told "Hannity" on Thursday night. "None of this has to do with security."
It is the latest skirmish in a free-speech fight involving conservative voices on college campuses across the country, including at Berkeley. In February, masked rioters at the school smashed windows, set fires, and shut down an appearance by former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Last week, the Berkeley College Republicans said threats of violence forced them to cancel a speech by writer David Horowitz. Writer Charles Murray's appearance at Middlebury saw riots last month, and Heather Mac Donald's speech at Claremont McKenna College was streamed online earlier this month after protesters blocked the door to the venue.
Berkeley has been the site of clashes between far-right and far-left protesters, most recently at a rally last weekend called in support of President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.

French presidential election: Voters take to the polls under heightened security

French voters began to flood the polls Sunday under heightened security to kick-off the start of a tense first-round poll that has been seen as a test for the spread of populism around the world.
Security around the more than 60,000 polling stations was tightened up in wake of the deadly shooting on the Champs-Elysses on Thursday, which left one police officer and a gunman dead. The government mobilized more than 50,000 police and gendarmes to protect the polling places and an additional 7,000 soldiers were on patrol.
It is the first time in recent memory that a presidential election, in which 47 million people are eligible to vote, taking place during a state of emergency, which was put in place after the Paris attacks of November 2015.
The vote "is really important, mainly because we really need a change in this country with all the difficulties we are facing and terrorism," said Paris resident Alain Richaud, who was waiting to cast his vote.
Opinion polls point to a tight race among the four top contenders vying to get into the May 7 presidential runoff that will decide who becomes France's next head of state.
Polls suggest far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead. But conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.
France's 10 percent unemployment, its lackluster economy and security issues topped concerns for the 47 million eligible voters.
Hard-line right-winger Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who rails against Europe, was the first of the presidential candidates to vote Sunday morning in his constituency in the leafy Paris suburbs. Far-left candidate Nathalie Arthaud cast her ballot soon after in the Paris suburb of Pantin.
Fillon will vote in Paris, but his wife — who's been handed preliminary charges for her role in the fake jobs scandal that rocked her husband's campaign — voted 250 155 miles away near their 14th century manor house in Sarthe.
If Le Pen or Melenchon win a spot in the summer’s runoff, it will be seen as a victory for the rising wave of populism reflected by the votes for Donald Trump and Brexit.
Macron and Fillon are committed to European unity and would reform labor rules.
Political campaigning was banned from midnight Friday hours ahead of polls opening in France's far-flung overseas territories such as Guadeloupe, French Polynesia and French Guiana, which all voted a day early Saturday.

Kim Jong Un party paradise: North Korean dictator's resort revealed as his people starve

These aerial pictures show Kim Jong Un’s party island– dubbed ‘North Korea’s Ibiza’ – where the nuke-loving dictator entertains his cronies and plots world domination just like a James Bond villain.
The sprawling resort comprises of luxury villas dotted around Kim’s giant private palace on a wooded estate on the east coast of the hermit nation.
GAS STATIONS IN NORTH KOREA'S MAIN CITY RESTRICT SERVICES, SPECULATION THAT CHINA IS REDUCING SUPPLY
As millions of North Koreans starve, the despot’s guests – members of the nation’s political elite – dine on the finest imported food like lobsters, scallops and French cheeses and wash it down with bottles of champagne, fine wines, whisky and brandy.
Former Chicago Bulls basketball star Dennis Rodman – who has struck up a bizarre friendship with the dictator – was a guest at the private retreat.
Rodman, who experts claim has had more contact with the tyrant than any other American, talked about the party resort comparing it to Spanish island Ibiza.He said: “It’s like going to Hawaii or Ibiza, but he’s the only one that lives there.
“He’s got 50 to 60 people around him all the time – just normal people, drinking cocktails and laughing the whole time.
“If you drink a bottle of tequila, it’s the best tequila.
“Everything you want, he has the best.”
Guests of Kim are given rooms decorated with imported antique furniture, paintings and tapestries.
His seaside party pad – close to the port of Wonson – has its own marina and secluded bays patrolled 24 hours a day by heavily armed troops.

North Korea threatens to strike US aircraft carrier to show 'military's force'

North Korea threatened Sunday to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military prowess as two Japanese navy ship joined a U.S. strike group for exercises in the Philippine Sea.
“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike," according to North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s newspaper, the Rodong Sinmum.
The paper also likened the USS Carl Vinson to a “gross animal” and said a strike on the carrier would be “an actual example to show our military’s force.”
President Trump ordered the USS Carl Vinson to sail to waters off the Korean Peninsula in response to the rising tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests and threats to attack the U.S. and its allies. Vice President Pence said Saturday that group would arrive “within days.”
The Vinson and two other U.S. warships were joined by two Japanese destroyers as they continued their journey north in the western Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. The U.S. group also includes a guided-missile cruiser and a guided-missile destroyer.
The aircraft carrier had canceled a scheduled visit to Australia to divert toward North Korea in a show of force, though it still conducted a curtailed training exercise with Australia before doing so.
The Navy called the exercise "routine" and said it is designed to improve combined maritime response and defense capabilities, as well as joint maneuvering proficiency.
The Vinson group has conducted three previous bilateral exercises with the Japanese navy since leaving San Diego on Jan. 5 for a western Pacific deployment. The most recent one was in March.
Analysts believe that North Korea could be gearing up for its sixth nuclear test in wake of a failed missile launch and ahead of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, which takes place Tuesday.
North Korea conducted two of its five nuclear tests last year and is believed to be working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that could reach the mainland U.S.