Euro jumps as Macron and Le Pen lead French election count
National Front’s Marine le Pen has about 25% of the vote, Emmanuel Macron has 21.3% and Fillon is on 19.7%
Paris — The euro jumped against the dollar on Sunday after early counting of ballots in the first round of the French election showed that centrist Emmanuel Macron and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen were on course to reach next month’s run-off. Le Pen has about 25% of the vote, according to initial estimates by the Interior Ministry. Macron has 21.3% and Republican candidate Francois Fillon is on 19.7%. Pollsters project that the count will shift in favor of Macron as votes from major cities are taken into account. Communist-backed Jean Luc Melenchon is on 17.9%. The shared currency gained as much as 1.9% in early trading in Auckland and touched $1.0933, the biggest intraday gain and highest level since November. A place for Macron in the second round would avoid investors’ nightmare scenario of a contest between the anti-euro Le Pen and the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon. "This is the perfect scenario the market was desperately looking for," said Sebastien Galy, a macro st...
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