Macron wins French presidential runoff: exit poll

French incumbent President Emmanuel Macron won the 2022 presidential runoff with 58.6 percent of the votes, according to the preliminary exit poll released Sunday evening by French television BFMTV.

Macron's rival, far-right wing candidate Marine Le Pen, gained 41.4 percent of the votes, according to the latest figures.

At his victory gathering, Macron entered the Champs-de-Mars, holding his wife's hand and surrounded by the youth, along with the European anthem of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

Macron said that his ambition for the next five years is to make France more independent, make a stronger Europe and to continue to invest in the country to make "France a great ecological nation."

In his speech, he vowed to be conscious of the citizens that have voted for Le Pen, and thanked those who have voted for him in the second round against the far-right party.

"I am not a candidate of a party, but the President of all," Macron said, adding that "we will have to be strong but no one will be left aside."

He told his supporters that his next term will not be a continuity of his first five years term. "This new era will not be a continuity," he said, but "five years of better."

"I am so proud to serve again", the president-elect said.

In her speech after learning the preliminary results, Le Pen said that "the result itself is a resounding victory."

"Millions of our compatriots have chosen the national camp and change. I extend my deepest gratitude to those who trusted me in the first round and to those who, by the millions, joined us in the second," she said.

Le Pen particularly thanked her supporters from the countryside and overseas territories that put her in the lead during the election.

Losing her second presidential runoff to Macron, Le Pen called on the French people to vote for her in the upcoming legislative elections.

In 2017, Macron and Le Pen also competed for the French presidency in a runoff vote, during which Macron was elected president with 66.1 percent of the votes.

Official results of the presidential runoff are expected to be published by the French Interior Ministry on Monday.