马克龙当选法国总统，你需要了解的5件事

欧洲终于可以松一口气了。

39岁的前投资银行家埃曼努尔·马克龙正式当选为未来五年的法国总统。马克龙曾在罗斯柴尔德银行（Rothschild）任职，后短时间担任过弗朗索瓦·奥朗德的经济部长。

马克龙获得了65.8%的得票率，以近一倍的优势，击败了极右翼国民阵线（Front National）候选人马林·勒庞（34.2%），成为法国140多年来最年轻的国家领导人。这一结果再次坚定了法国对贸易自由主义和欧盟的承诺，尽管法国境内伊斯兰教徒暴力行为日益增多，主流政党也没有解决长久以来的失业和预算赤字问题。

对于欧洲近年来最重要的一次选举，你需要知道下面几件事。

1. 民粹主义潮流只是暂时平息，但并未消失

正如我们上周所说的，这是欧洲主流势力的一次重要胜利，但并非最终的胜利。虽然总统大选通常归结为个性的竞争，但事实上，一年多来法国的失业率在不断下降，并且终于实现了经济增长。商业调查显示，法国经济创下了六年来最快的增长速度。这分流了勒庞吸引的抗议选票。她在两周前的首轮投票中获得了21.3%的得票率，但在2014年欧盟议会选举时，她的政党的得票率为24.8%，下降了3.5%。事后看来，2014年的投票结果，可能成为国民阵线在危机后的周期高点。但增长也是周期性的，许多因素正在削弱对仇恨全球化、恐惧伊斯兰教和失业问题等极右翼和极左翼主张的支持，这些因素都是结构性的。2002年，让-马里·勒庞参加大选时的得票率为17.8%，而他女儿的得票率几乎翻了一番，这在表面上依旧可以证明，从长期来看，国民阵线正处在上升趋势。

2. 法国例外

2006年民粹主义者取得了两场巨大的胜利，分别是唐纳德·特朗普胜选和英国脱欧公投，而这两次胜利主要都归功于老年选民。65岁以上选民支持特朗普的比例比反对者高出八个百分点（54% - 46%），而支持脱欧的65岁以上选民更是比反对者高出20个百分点（60% - 40%），令人感到诧异。相比之下，据哈佛学者雅斯查·蒙克指出，年轻人比其他年龄群体更倾向于支持勒庞。据蒙克引用的数据显示，老年人支持和反对马克龙的比例分别为80% - 20%。

3. 对欧元的支持

退休老人害怕勒庞当选的部分原因，无疑是因为她承诺退出欧元区，推出新法郎（尽管她的思路杂乱无章，甚至她自己可能都不理解）。巧合的是，老年人反对和支持勒庞的比例分别为80% - 20%，与民意调查网站Opinion-Way.fr就她退出欧元区的承诺是否现实进行民调时得到的结果完全相同。对于老年人来说，“法国脱欧”可能意味着购买力下降，通货膨胀加剧。而与其他发达国家一样，老年人正在对选举结果产生越来越大的影响力。此外，法国选民不再像希腊选民一样，认为更廉价、更自由的货币，可以解决他们的问题。法国有48%的进口来自欧元区，民众有这样的态度也就不足为奇了。

4. 马克龙有很强的学习能力

马克龙在首轮投票结束进入决胜轮之后，在巴黎一家高档餐厅举行了盛大的派对，结果遭到激烈的批评。对于许多人来说，这意味着他认为最终胜利已经板上钉钉。他也确实有理由这样想，因为数月来每一次民意调查都显示，他对勒庞有明显的领先优势，但没有人喜欢被认为是理所当然的。所以，他在周日发表的获胜演讲变得谦逊得多。犬儒主义者可能认为，这也表明他现在真得应该对竞争对手友好一些，因为他所领导的“前进”（En Marche!）运动，在6月份的国民议会选举中并不能保证取得好成绩。而如果在议会中不能掌握可靠的多数席位，马克龙将很难颁布改革方案，来彻底消除各种极端主义威胁。

5. 选民可以分辨虚假新闻

此次选举有一个显而易见的好消息，那就是法国选民基本上没有受到虚假新闻持续攻击的影响，其中多数虚假新闻的目的都是抹黑马克龙。有消息称马克龙隐瞒了同性恋的身份，并称他在巴哈马群岛拥有秘密银行账户的，虽然这些说法在法国互联网广为流传，但却并没有左右选情。最后有人试图用一批据称是被黑客窃取的电子邮件，来阻止马克龙（初步迹象显示此事依旧与俄罗斯有关），但这种愚蠢的做法一两个小时之后，法国政府紧急颁布了针对选举相关新闻报道的传统禁令。相比之下，左倾司法部门旨在抹黑建制派中右翼候选人弗朗索瓦·菲永的泄密行动，却取得了成功，至少因为泄露的信息更有事实依据。这种形势的寓意在于，只要法国建制派能够比非建制派更专业地引导民意，法国的民主便是安全的。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

Europe can finally breathe out.

Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker with Rothschild who briefly served as Francois Hollande's economy minister, has been elected president of France for the next five years.

According to preliminary figures, he trounced the far right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen by a margin of 65.8% to 34.2%—almost two to one—to become the youngest leader of France in over 140 years. With that result, France has reaffirmed its commitment to liberalism and the European Union, despite the surge in Islamist atrocities on French soil in recent years, and despite the failure of mainstream parties to tackle the chronic problems of unemployment and budget deficits.

Here's what you need to know about the most important election in the heart of Europe in years.

1. Populism Postponed, not Cancelled

As we argued last week, this is a major victory for Europe's mainstream, but it's not a final one. While this has often been boiled down to a battle of personalities, the fact is that unemployment has been falling for over a year, while growth has finally taken root. Business surveys suggest the economy is growing at its fastest rate in six years. That has drained protest votes away from Le Pen. The 21.3% she received in the first round two weeks ago was already 3.5% less than the 24.8% her party got in elections to the EU Parliament in 2014. The 2014 result, in hindsight, will go down as the post-crisis cyclical peak for the FN. But growth is cyclical, and many of the factors underpinning support for the far right and far left—a resentment of globalization, a fear of Islamism, and much of the unemployment problem, are structural. Le Pen, who still got nearly double the 17.8% her father Jean-Marie got in the 2002 run-off, can still plausibly argue that the FN is on an upward long-term trajectory.

2. The French Exception

The two great populist successes of 2016, the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum, both owed much to older voters. Over 65s voted for Trump by a margin of eight percentage points (54%-46%), and voted for Brexit by a thumping 20-point margin (60%-40%). By contrast, the young were more inclined to vote for Le Pen than any other age group, Harvard lecturer Yascha Mounk pointed out. According to figures cited by Mounk, the gray vote split 80%-20% in favor of Macron.

3. Support for the Euro

Part of retirees' fear of Le Pen was doubtless tied to her promises to withdraw from the euro and reintroduce the franc (albeit in a muddled way which even she probably didn't understand). The 80%-20% split in the old vote against Le Pen was, coincidentally, exactly the same as produced when pollster Opinion-Way.fr asked whether her promises on pulling out of the Euro were realistic. 'Frexit' would have meant less spending power and more inflation for a demographic that, as everywhere in the advanced world, is exerting a huge and growing influence on election results. Ultimately, French voters didn't think a cheaper, freer currency would solve their problems any more than Greece's did. Which is hardly surprising when 48% of your imports come from the Eurozone.

4. Macron is a quick learner

After the first round of voting, Macron was slammed for holding a big party in an upscale Paris restaurant after making it through to the run-off. To many, that suggested he was already thinking victory was a nailed-on certainty. He had good reason to, since every opinion poll for months had shown him clearly beating Le Pen, but nobody likes to be taken for granted, and his victory speech on Sunday was a lot more humble. Cynics would say it also reflected the fact that he now really has to start being nice to his opponents, because his movement, En Marche!, is by no means guaranteed to do as well in elections to the Assembly in June. And without a reliable majority in parliament, Macron will struggle to enact the reforms needed to kill off the extremist menace for good.

5. Voters are wising up to fake news

One unambiguously good piece of news out of the vote is that French voters have been largely immune to a constant barrage of fake news, the overwhelming majority of which was aimed at discrediting Macron. Allegations of secret homosexuality and clandestine bank accounts in the Bahamas gained ample space in the French Internet, but failed to gain traction. A final ham-fisted attempt to embarrass Macron with a trove of what purported to be hacked e-mails (first indications suggest the trail leads back - again - to Russia) only broke an hour or two before the traditional ban on reporting election-relevant news descended. By contrast, a targeted campaign of leaks from a largely left-leaning judiciary discrediting the establishment center-right candidate Francois Fillon succeeded spectacularly, not least because they appeared to be better founded in fact. The moral appears to be that democracy in France will be safe as long as the establishment does a more professional job of manipulating public opinion than the anti-establishment.