PARIS Police gradually began reopening Paris’ Gare du Nord train station early on Tuesday morning after earlier evacuating the platforms and cordoning off the area because of a security alert, local police authorities said. A Reuters witness at the scene said there were between 20 to 30 police vans outside the station in central Paris with security forces wearing balaclavas and carrying assault weapons. “End of security […]
By Shu Zhang and Matthew Miller | BEIJING BEIJING A Chinese government campaign to cut leverage in the banking system and limit some risky activities appears to be working, but it is also pushing borrowers back towards alternative funding sources that carry similar risks to the financial system. First-quarter official data shows banks cut the amount they lent to and borrowed from other financial institutions by 1.4 […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump and French President-elect Emmanuel Macron agreed during a phone call on Monday to meet during a May 25 NATO leaders meeting in Brussels, the White House said. “President Trump emphasized his desire to work closely with President-elect Macron in confronting shared challenges, and noted the long and robust history of cooperation between the United States and its oldest ally, France,” the White […]
Monday 16:30 BST What you need to know • The euro is losing momentum after touching a six-month high, down 0.6 per cent at $1.0925 • New York equity markets are muted; European equities markets are falling back, led by banks after early momentum from the French election continues to fade • Oil prices have also been volatile with both Brent and WTI seesawing either side of […]
By Thierry Chiarello and Sarah White | PARIS PARIS Emmanuel Macron may have won Sunday’s presidential election by a comfortable margin, but even his supporters’ enthusiasm is tempered by the scale of the challenge that the inexperienced politician faces in tackling France’s deep-seated economic, social and security problems. Macron, a former economy minister who had never previously stood for elected office, beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen […]
By Nigel Stephenson | LONDON LONDON European stocks and the euro pulled back on Monday from highs touched after Emmanuel Macron’s emphatic but well-flagged victory in France’s presidential election as investors’ focus shifted from politics to monetary policy. With the political risks that have dominated European markets in a year packed with elections seen receding, the European Central Bank is expected to have more room to tighten […]
Emmanuel Macron has swept to emphatic victory in France’s presidential election, clinching 66 per cent of the vote to beat far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The National Front candidate’s 34 per cent share fell well short of the most optimistic projections for Ms Le Pen, which had suggested she could win as much as 45 per cent of the vote in the second round. Mr Macron’s victory […]
The market reaction to Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election has been muted so far, with investors having to a large extent anticipated the result. “The euro went up a bit, down a bit and ended pretty much where it was last week. Damp squib would be an overstatement,” as Kit Juckes at Société Générale put it. At pixel time, the euro was trading at […]
Emmanuel Macron’s triumph in the French presidential election nudged the euro to a six-month high against the dollar, with analysts and investors predicting that the result could spur a return of money to the eurozone. The euro inched up 0.1 per cent to $1.1021 in the hours after it became clear the centrist had beaten Marine Le Pen, before dipping 0.1 per cent to $1.0977 as Asian trading started. […]
BERLIN Europe’s political establishment entered 2017 in a state of panic. Britain had voted to leave the European Union six months before and the United States had just elected a president who was hostile to their grand project and the values it stood for. The same forces that had led to Brexit and Donald Trump – popular anger with distant elites, economic inequality and immigration – threatened […]
The Australian dollar was on the back foot following data showing the biggest yearly drop in building approvals in six months. Approvals were down 19.9 per cent in the 12 months to the end of March, tumbling from a 4.9 per cent fall in February, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was well below expectations among economists for a 10 per cent fall, […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, won an emphatic victory in France’s presidential run-off against Marine Le Pen, the far-right Front National leader, on Sunday, taking 65.1 per cent of the vote, according to estimates. Mr Macron’s victory is a phenomenal achievement for the 39-year-old former Rothschild banker, who has never before held elected office and whose political movement En Marche! was […]
LONDON The euro topped $1.10 for the first time since the U.S. elections on Sunday and climbed to a one-year high against the safe-haven yen on relief that Emmanuel Macron had beaten the far-right Marine Le Pen to clinch the French presidency. Early projections showed the market-friendly, pro-EU candidate Macron had been voted in with about 65 percent of the vote, comfortably defeating Le Pen, a nationalist […]
Independent centrist Emmanuel Macron has won an emphatic victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election, according to preliminary estimates. Macron won 65.1% of the second round vote, according to preliminary estimate by Ipsos-Sopra Steria, while Le Pen secured 34.9% Hackers hit the Macron campaign with a ‘massive’ document leak on Friday night Take a look at the FT’s poll tracker […]
By Noah Barkin and Leigh Thomas | BERLIN/PARIS BERLIN/PARIS After a decade of slow growth, rising unemployment and dwindling competitiveness, France elected a president on Sunday who says he has a plan to pull the country out of its economic malaise. Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker who quit the government of Francois Hollande twice out of frustration with the slow pace of reforms, is promising […]
PARIS France’s far-right National Front must be relaunched, Marine Le Pen said on Sunday after conceding defeat to centrist Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential election . “The National Front … must deeply renew itself in order to rise to the historic opportunity and meet the French people’s expectations,” Le Pen said in a brief address to supporters shortly after initial projections were released. “I will propose to […]
Live Feed from France 24: After an extraordinary election campaign full of twists and turns, Emmanuel Macron won dramatic victory over Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, taking 65% of the vote, with Le Pen collecting roughly 35%, according to early estimate from four separate French pollsters. Macron, 39, will become the youngest president of France’s Fifth Republic. As BBG notes, the firms sampled real […]
BRUSSELS More than 60 percent of voters have cast or were planning to cast their ballots in French presidential elections for Emmanuel Macron according to surveys carried out on Sunday, Belgian media said. “According to three different institutes, Emmanuel Macron would be first in the presidential election with a result above 60 percent,” Le Soir newspaper said. Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said polls put Macron’s share of […]
PARIS The courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was due to speak later on Sunday, was briefly evacuated after a suspect bag was found. Police in the French capital said they made security checks of the area as a precaution and later added that the situation there had returned to normal. Centrist Macron, who is tipped to beat the far […]
By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS After a tumultuous election campaign filled with scandal and surprises, the French public began to vote on Sunday on whether a pro-European Union centrist or an anti-EU, anti-immigration far-rightist will lead them for the next five years. Opinion polls indicate they will pick Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old ex-economy minister who wants to bridge the left-right divide, resisting an anti-establishment tide that […]
PARIS Voting stations opened in France for the second round of the presidential election, with opinion polls indicating Emmanuel Macron was likely to beat Marine Le Pen. Macron wants to deregulate the economy and deepen European Union integration, in contrast to the anti-EU and anti-immigration National Front candidate Le Pen. Forecasts proved to be accurate for the presidential election’s first round last month and financial markets have […]
By Jonathan Cable | LONDON LONDON The fate of the European Union and the euro could hang on the outcome of Sunday’s French presidential election. The expected victory of centrist, pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron would be taken by markets as a sign that political risk in Europe is receding; a surprise win for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen would raise the risk that the euro zone’s number […]
May 7, 2017 by: Harriet Agnew and Michael Stothard in Paris The French go to the polls on Sunday to vote for their next president in a run-off election where they will pick between independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and Front National leader Marine Le Pen. They face a choice between two radically different visions for the eurozone’s second-largest economy. Mr Macron, a 39-year old rookie politician whose […]
The campaign team of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron says it has been the victim of a “massive and co-ordinated” hacking operation ahead of Sunday’s election. Around nine gigabytes of data were posted online to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for releasing the files. The documents, posted on Friday night, appeared to contain details of emails […]
