| Why Le Pen, and populists, see Sunday loss as another step forward Posted: 08 May 2017 11:03 AM PDT ![Why Le Pen, and populists, see Sunday loss as another step forward]( "Why Le Pen, and populists, see Sunday loss as another step forward") Marine le Pen won little more than half the votes that her rival, Emmanuel Macron, garnered in Sunday's French presidential election. Recommended: More than Bastille, Bonaparte, and brie: Test your knowledge of France with our quiz! "The threat to liberal democracy is clearly still there," says Yascha Mounk, a German-born politics teacher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Protectionist, anti-immigrant, and illiberal parties such as Ms. Le Pen's National Front (FN) are now the second largest parties in France, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands.
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| France’s new president: a mender of trust in Europe Posted: 08 May 2017 10:31 AM PDT ![France's new president: a mender of trust in Europe]( "France's new president: a mender of trust in Europe") In his victory speech Sunday after being elected France's next president, Emmanuel Macron made an unusual promise for a national leader: "I will work to mend the bond between Europe and its peoples." Indeed, if Mr. Macron's mandate from French voters means anything, it is that trust across the Continent must be rebuilt after 60 years of trying to form a European identity. The 28-member European Union is hardly unraveling. Despite those divisions, two-thirds of Europeans consider themselves to be citizens of the EU, according to a poll last year.
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| Why more Americans are weighing personal conscience and religious liberty Posted: 08 May 2017 10:17 AM PDT ![Why more Americans are weighing personal conscience and religious liberty]( "Why more Americans are weighing personal conscience and religious liberty") Invoking the American tradition of "conscientious objection," W. Mitchell Nance, a family court judge, also said that his views of homosexuality might constitute a "personal bias or prejudice" that compromised his impartiality, since same-sex marriage and adoption are now considered fundamental rights. Other religious conservatives, too, have begun to appropriate legal concepts often understood to protect religious minorities. With their attempts to carve out conscience exemptions for certain wedding vendors and public officials, allowing them to opt out of participating in same-sex marriage ceremonies, many have begun to couch their arguments within the traditional values of religious pluralism and tolerance.
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| In Macron, supporters see a champion of optimism Posted: 08 May 2017 09:32 AM PDT ![In Macron, supporters see a champion of optimism]( "In Macron, supporters see a champion of optimism") The improbable rise of Emmanuel Macron as the youngest president in modern French history – held up as a rebuke to transatlantic populism and generating expectations from Boston to Berlin – started with the big hope of women like Christelle Dernon. Ms. Dernon was one of thousands of French people who signed up for the political movement "En Marche" that Mr. Macron started just a year ago, knocking on doors across the country and helping create and curate the message of optimism that ultimately prevailed at the polls Sunday night. At the time the then-economy minister was not a presidential candidate.
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