Macron's challenges don't end with win

Mr Emmanuel Macron's win over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the presidential poll run-off makes him the first French president with a parliamentary majority to be re-elected since the Fifth Republic was born in 1958. The win has been met with relief around the world, not least in Europe where the common currency strengthened on the news before giving up some of its gains over worries about China's flagging growth. The decisive margin of victory could provide momentum for the looming parliamentary polls where an absolute majority for his party is less assured. It must also not be missed that this was Ms Le Pen's best-ever showing.

Now that a change of course is unlikely in France - Ms Le Pen may have pivoted the country closer to Russia, disrupting the patina of European unity that exists today over Ukraine - European institutions are likely to be strengthened. France currently holds the rotating presidency and has been an enthusiastic Europeanist. The results also presage a strengthening of the Franco-German compact, particularly, and are reassuring all round, not least for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which simply cannot afford any public manifestations of internal schisms that a leadership change in a key member could have brought - and not forgetting what it could also have meant for a country with a permanent United Nations Security Council seat.