Hello and welcome. My name is Sophia Besh and you're listening to the CER podcast.

Hello. Yesterday, Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old leader of the political movement on March,

won the French presidential election against the right-wing

Front National candidate Marine Le Pen, with the final vote of 66.06% to 33.94%.

I'm here with Ian Bond, the foreign policy director of the CEO, to get his analysis on what

the French election means for France, for Europe, for Britain,

the US, Russia and the future of liberalism. Thanks for being on the podcast, Ian.

My pleasure.

So let's jump right in. First, what does this election mean for France? Supporters would say

that Macron won this election on the promise of reform and a commitment to Europe.

He is a pro-EU, pro-immigration liberal. But critics say that he won by virtue not of who he is,

but who he isn't. He is not Marine Le Pen. Is that enough to unite France behind him?

Clearly that wouldn't on its own be enough to unite France, but one has to remember that he's

come through two rounds, so he's already brought together a significant coalition of voters from

the centre left, the centre right. So I think he will start with a lot of goodwill. This is a victory by pretty much two to one.

So I think he will have a strong mandate to start off with. What are the reforms that he should

push in his first few months in office then? Where should his priorities be? He's got to try to

kickstart the French economy.

The French economy has been in the doldrums for quite a long time and it's gone from being

pretty much in harness with the German economy a few years ago to lagging some distance behind

it.

Unemployment is quite high, growth is quite low, and so Macron will want to do something pretty quickly to show that he is getting

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