The euro surged to a 5 month high against the U.S. dollar in Asian trading on Monday after centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right Marine Le Pen won the first round of the French presidential election.
French election relief sends Euro soaring
Euro soars as both candidates take a big step towards the French presidency.
Market Analyst at Montsegur Finance, Francios Chaulet said the result lifted an uncertainty that had been quite significant in a country where two parties of the four candidates had had clearly anti-European opinions.”
“The markets have experienced a few days of stress with four candidates going up in the polls, who were practically all at the same level if you take into account the margins of error. It’s true that the ballot boxes have spoken, and it is somewhat reassuring because we have in first place a candidate,” he said.
The shared currency gained as much as 2 percent in Tokyo to 1.0937 dollars.
An updated estimation by research firm Elabe for local broadcaster BFMTV indicates that Macron leads with 24 percent of the votes and Le Pen, 21.8 percent.
A political Expert at Science Po University, Bruno cautres noted that French electorate before the election was obviously in the mood that something has to happen to France, stating that they have this huge level of political distrust, economic pessimism and that finally someone young, someone new has come in the picture.
“we could look ahead, we could go further in the European integration’ because that election in the second round it’s going to talk about anti and pro-EU, and the majority of the French are critics of the EU but they don’t want France going outside Europe,” he said.
A total of 11 candidates campaigned in this year’s race for the French presidency and the two leading candidates are set to face off in the runoff on May 7.