ah, every thursday d w ah ah! a law from berlin for the 1st time and 2 decades of french president wins reelection. but ammonia, my call at met his victory, was held by voters trying to block his rival. rima penn, lose us, but secures the highest vote ever for a far right candidate. also coming up as russia as invasion, enters its 3rd month, top us officials that came to announce more funding for weapon. russia is failing. ukraine is succeeding. us secretaries of state and defense saying ukraine can win

if they are given more arms. they also pledge to help neighboring countries restock their arsenal. ah. under control. welcome to the show. and my, my call has been re elected president of france winning a 2nd 5 year term. according to provisional results. my call seized a convincing victory with 58.5 percent of the vote. his opponent marine le pen secured 41.5 percent. if the highest outcome yet for any far right candidate in french history, amid widespread discontent and political disillusion, the runoff election drew the lowest, turn out of voters, and more than half a century and handed my call, a rather bitter sweet wintery. a grin not often seen on the french

leader sunday's votes saw a manuel mcclure in high spirits after he won 5 more years in office, the 1st french president in 20 years to be re elected. but as he claimed to victory, he acknowledged that many votes hadn't been cast for him, but against his opponent. just so c, i know that many of our compatriots have voted for me to day, not to support the ideas that i stand for. this is, this is a put to block those of the extreme right. i said that it's somewhat as fighting rages in ukraine. many are relieved that my cross victory won't mean a change. of course. during the campaign, he contrasted his opponents ties to the kremlin with his own strong support for arming ukrainian forces that we are going through tragic times here on a kind law. the war in ukraine obliges friends to make its choices clear.

so who are the thought this and to build up its strength them in all areas to swap? that is something we will continue to do. what were the domain in yellow so paula had predicted a close race. but in the end macro, when a comfortable 58 percent of votes, his far right opponent marine le pen conceded defeat. but boyd by his strongest ever showing she said she wasn't going anywhere. this evening i will say again, i will never abandon the french people loading lift a republic long left from and as her party looked for what crumbs were left far left, demonstrators clashed with police and several cities accusing mycroft. being

a president for the rich and manuel macro has pledged to be a president for all french citizens, but it will take more than a smile and a wave to make frances widespread dissatisfaction. go away. and i can now talked our correspondence on your family car who's covering the election for us in paris. sonya the extreme left there visibly unhappy with the results. how are other people they're reacting to the prospect of 5 more years of michael? well, i think that very much depends on who you're speaking to. it's true that his distractors, of course, are bitterly disappointed the french media to day there's been a general sigh of relief. i have to say in among politicians here among mainstream politicians, the french media has been calling this a bit of a bitter sweet victory because, you know, even though micro has a share of ardent supporters, he did rely heavily on people who really greeted their teeth yesterday. especially

people on the left and voted for him just to keep out his father. i challenge m marine le pen out of government. we also saw a historic low turn out yesterday. we also had more than $3000000.00 people who cost of spoil to buy blank ballads in or rally around the slogan of neither micron nor the pin, which was coined by students between the $2.00 rounds. and these are people who obviously didn't feed represented by either of the candidates, despite the fundamental differences between the 2. so i think all this adds up to a picture of a country that is utterly divided and i think macro will now, you know, have his work cut out to, to bring the country together. let's talk about the work ahead. what will be the biggest challenges for my call in the 2nd term? well, i think his most immediate challenge will be holding on to his party's majority in the lower house of parliament. the assembly national oak parliamentary elections will take place in june and renewing that majority will be critical for macro on if

he wants to continue his reform course. it will also be a test of his popularity. another challenge will be passing a controversial pension reform that has been a key blank of his platform. he wants to raise the retirement age to 65 from current 60 to with. that's a very controversial subject in france. back in 2019 pensioner reforms triggered massive a tripling strikes across bronze. and i think more generally macro, you know, as he continues his rapid course to liberalize the economy, you'd have to kind of keep a balance and try to do without to to do that without risking social unrest. you know, some of his measures like abolishing the wealth tax, like cutting financial assistance for housing making changes to the labor court. all these are measures in the past that have really alienated waters on the left who feel that it's in its favor. the rich, it's widened it inequalities and really triggered a massive anti government potter's during this for storms lighting, macro. now we'll have to, you know, change cost, weakest policies and really offer something to waters on the left,

on issues like environment and education. a long road ahead. thanks for that update . so yeah, for the bigger picture on my cons. election, victory let's brain my name is in brussels and can give us the european perspective . max learning the pan was the eas nightmare candidate. how big is there relief in the european capital after her defeat? rightly call. so we just saw the picture server mikasa victory speech underneath her in front of the eiffel tower. that, that sea of, of blue european flags for me. there was a pretty symbolic moment arm, and you can imagine that for european leaders across the continent, but also here in the institutions in brussels. this was a massive relief seeing this am. now let me just remain in the run up to the elections and some of the leaders actually came out in support of a model. my co actually actually actively campaigning for his re election, which is quite unusual. i'm. but the reason for this is this could have,

may have well ended very differently with a far right leader and the highest political position in france. a very important country within, within the european union, l. a leader that is against many things that the european union embodies. so pretty much it didn't take very long last night for you leaders to come out with their well wishes with the council president, michelle, for example, saying that we can count on france for 5 more years now. or the german chancellor shalt seeing that this was not just a strong vote for france, but also a strong votes of confidence for europe at let's talk about how important michael's victory is in the is joint approach to russia and the war in ukraine. what can you tell us about that? right, so some are saying this was not just a loss for money, le pen,

but at the same time, let him put in, was running on her ticket and a he was actually, he actually lost himself. we know that the pen and her party a national rally, had, had, has very close ties to the kremlin. in fact, they gave her money when nobody else would, and french president manuel mccall and the last televised debate actually called her out on that cold vitamin put in her her banker. now, in light of ukraine war, she has kind of shifted her stance a bits towards russia, not significantly. she called the invasion of ukraine, a crossing of a red line, but she still calls for we approach min after the war. and so a victory of le pen would have most likely shaken up um the whole system would have created a rift between you, member states between you, allies in nato allies. so having a, having continuing contingency, having in one of my call and power, a president who has been very outspoken on, on,

on you defense. i'm in the situation right now is probably a good thing with and then brussels. thanks so much as now. take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world today. at least a 100 people are confirmed dad after an explosion, an illegal refinery. nigeria, on friday emergency personnel are still searching the site and police are on the lookout for 2 people. suspected of being responsible for the last and areas president has bound to clamp down on make sense or facility. global defense spending reached a record high for the 7th consecutive year and 2021. the latest report from the stock home international piece research institute reveals military spending rose to $2.00 trillion dollars. despite the pandemic, arms imports to europe increased by 19 percent over a decade and

a political newcomers sent to becomes lenient. next, prime minister, holding sundays, parliamentary elections, nearly complete returns show robert gloves left leaning freedom movement, gaining a 3rd of the votes. ahead of income and prime minister john is young. chuck conservatives, but neither party securing an outright majority. a coalition government is now likely let's move on to russia's war on ukraine. we're officials say moscow has targeted real infrastructure in a series of missiles strikes the head of ukrainian railways. reports that the attack took place in the space of an hour to day on at least 5 railway stations in the center and west of the country. the attacks come, i'm in a u. s. show of support for ukraine. u. a secretary of state entity blanket and the defense secretary lloyd austin, met ukrainian, president of a lot of years the landscape during a visit to came during which they announced another funding booth to help ukraine buy more weapons to find the invasion. and let's bring in our correspondent monro

shows in levine, who has had to take refuge in a bunker a couple of times today already. emma, 1st of all, good to say you're safe. what can you tell us about the strikes in the west of the country where you are? well, and in nickel earlier this morning, we had to take shelter in a bunk out twice because of air as try alerts. and some of those strikes a hit or west in the ukraine does or in cross near that is in the levine region, or where i am in class near re weigh infrastructure was heats and intervening. so region which is between a delivery john and a key, if that's of 5 hours drive from here to cities have been targeted. we know from official reports that there have been a dead and injured or no a further information as of now, we don't know if there were civilians or who died, who were injured or even marseilles, a hit military infrastructure. there's also been 2 strikes in the river ne,

a region and a region or no injuries are reported at dare and one miss sila being intercepted us . so here in the living region, we are many people here who could see the messiah a cruising over the city. earlier this morning. now, emma, the attacks on the railway infrastructure could have wide reaching consequences for the people in ukraine, the railway system, and when extremely important, since the war broke out, hadn't it? it has been instrumental or you know, to our, to move or the military infrastructure and how so that of course, we've seen those scenes of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people using re weighed to flee. the most affected the west effected a zones of to flee or east ukraine to come here and take shelter in the west. so at re weigh it. infrastructure is critical for air, military or goals for, for,

for ukraine, for ukrainians, but also for ukrainians are fleeing the conflicts. the us as just pledge there $100000000.00 in military aid. does that give people hope? they're definitely unclear. said over the past few days that they had the feeling, the authorities here had the feeling that there are ukraine's western allies find that he understood a ukraine's needs with more countries pledging to help in the military efforts last night. and in the blink in the u. s secretary said that the u. s. a would add an additional $700.00 or $700000000.00 in military ed, the half of which would go directly to key if in order for ukraine to buy the necessary weapons. and the other half will go to a neighboring countries and nato allies, which have been giving a weapons during the course of those of the past 2 months. dw correspondent,

among chas from levine. thank you so much and please try to stacy. thank you. you're wanting to w news line from berlin after the break. chris kolber will have all the latest business headlines for you looking. of course at went and manion my calls when or mean for the french economy. there's also plenty more for you on our website than it's d, w dot com. i'm sure it comes with people in trucks injured when trying to free the citizen more and more refugees are being turned away. families tax credit owns with extreme $200.00.