Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Monday, April 25th. I'm Nyla Buddha. Here's

what we're watching. Workers at Big Chains are still earning less than $15 an hour. And

first, today's one big thing. French voters avert a hard right turn.

President Emanuel Macron won re-election yesterday, defeating far-right candidate

Marine Le Pen. Macron also beat Le Pen back in 2017, but in this race, her nationalist message

gained more traction. As France grapples with anger over cost of living increases,

French involvement in Ukraine's war, and much more. Despite Macron's decisive win,

it was the closest France has come to electing an extreme right leader since 1944.

I also am aware that many of our compatriots voted for me today not to support my ideas,

but simply to build a barricade against the ideas of the far-right.

That's Macron in his victory speech last night before a crowd of thousands in front of the

Eiffel Tower, pledging to be a president for all of France. freelance journalist Megan

Clement has been covering the election and joins us from Paris. Hi Megan. Hi.

What's the mood in Paris like this evening? I think for a lot of people, it is relief that

this dam that we've asked people to build to keep out the far-right has held. Can you take us to

back and just tell us what was at stake here? The stakes were very high. Marine Le Pen has worked hard

to soften her image in this campaign, but she is a far-right candidate. So the stakes were very

high, particularly also with the war going on in Ukraine and what a Eurosceptic, I think it's fair

to say President of France would have been like when France has the presidency of Europe at the

moment. But the result in the end was pretty decisive for Macron. Where does he go from here then?

So the next five years are going to be very interesting because Macron cannot run again,

and a lot will depend on what happens in June when France votes for the parliamentary elections.

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