Return of the Mac

🇫🇷🗳️ French President Emmanuel Macron defeated conservative populist challenger Marine Le Pen to win re-election yesterday, with projections as polls closed showing him winning 58% to 42%.

• Once his victory is officially confirmed this afternoon, the 44-year-old Macron will be the first French president to win a second term since 2002, when Marine Le Pen’s father was defeated by then-President Jacques Chirac.
• At the top of President Macron’s upcoming agenda is a plan to streamline France’s complex pension system and raise the country’s retirement age to 65 from 62, per the WSJ.
• President Macron says the move is necessary to fund lower taxes and boost government spending on the country’s public healthcare system.
• France is the only EU member on the UN Security Council, and has the only nuclear arsenal in the entire 27-nation bloc.
• French Prime Minister Jean Castex last week said his government would resign if Macron won re-election to provide a "new impetus" for Macron's centrist La Republique En Marche party ahead of parliamentary elections in June.

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