Phew, what an exciting way to end an exciting campaign in France. As a whole, the campaign results were really historic for the French Republic. Not only was Emmanuel Macron elected as the youngest president in the history of the republic, but the National Front, the right wing populist party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, received a new record in voting percentage in a presidential election. With Marine Le Pen heading the National Front, she received almost twice as many votes as her father did when he ran in the second round of the 2002 presidential election.

People are saying all over the media that they believe that the tidal wave of populism sparked by those in the U.S. with the election of Trump, and those in the U.K. with the vote on Brexit has been curbed, and that Marine Le-Pen’s career for the most part is over. I believe it is just the beginning. With quotes coming from Macron like calling terrorism an “imponderable problem,” and that the “times have changed and we should learn to deal with terrorism,” show that Macron is not really up to the job. Add that to the fact that he spent most of his political career as the Financial Minister for Francois Hollande, the outgoing president who had before the election an approval rating of 4 percent, and whose policies have crushed the French economy, will soon turn Macron into a pariah.

The majority of the French voters voted on the basis that they wanted to stop at all costs Marine Le-Pen, even if they didn’t care too much for the former Rothschild investment banker. Once Marine is able to spread her message throughout the French rustbelt, which has already been her strong suit in the Northeast, Southeast, and her new target the Southwest, Marine may one day, especially if the terrorism and sexual assaults across the country continue, be propelled to victory in the 2022 French election. People often wonder why Marine Le-Pen was not able to earn the votes she originally was destined to gain, which ranged from 41 percent to 38 percent, instead of her much weaker figure of 33.9 percent? Many can blame that not only on her poor debate performance, which many in France saw as her being downright nasty and scornful towards Macron. Combine that with comments from Jean-Francois Jaikh, the chosen successor for the role as the Nation Front’s leader, surfacing from a few years ago of him denying the existence of the Nazi concentration camps.

Either way, both parties, Macron’s being the En Marche party, which has galvanized the college educated youth vote, and Marine Le-Pen stripping the mainstream parties of the poor, unemployed, and working class vote, she had became the only real contender for the opposition party against En Marche for the next few years to come, sealing the party’s fate as being one that should no longer be mocked. If Marine, who has already talked about renaming the party, removes the skeletons from the closet, and changes her economic policy from a left wing status quo policy to one that represents more or less conservatism, she may very well win in 2022.

It is my own opinion that France has made a horrible mistake, for I feel they have suffered enough under the socialist government of France. However, the political pendulum is always swinging, so a move to the left could set the stage for the National Front to triumph in 2022, and even have the possibility of holding a majority in the legislature. The final vote was 66.10 percent Marcon to Marine’s 33.90%, along with abstentions around 25.44% of the vote, as well as black ballots taking up about 11.47%.