France Will Now Choose between Two Outsiders, Macron and Le Pen

Only a decade ago, France’s two traditional major parties — the conservative Republicans and the Socialists — won 57 percent of the vote between them in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. On Sunday, both parties together won less than half that — only 26 percent. Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old independent who placed first in this year’s round, declared that the nation had “discarded” the two once-dominant parties.