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      Emmanuel Macron Defeats Marine Le Pen for Second Term as French President

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      The result was a relief to allies in Europe and Washington wary of a far-right challenger who was hostile to the European Union and NATO.PARIS — Emmanuel Macron won a second term as president of France, triumphing on Sunday over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, after a campaign where his promise of stability prevailed over the temptation of an extremist lurch.Projections at the close of voting, which are generally reliable, showed Mr. Macron, a centrist, gaining 58.5 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.5 percent. His victory was much narrower than in 2017, when the margin was 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent for Ms. Le Pen, but wider than appeared likely two weeks ago.Speaking to a crowd massed on the Champ de Mars in front of a twinkling Eiffel Tower, a solemn Mr. Macron said his was a victory for “a more independent France and a stronger Europe.” He added: “Our country is riddled with so many doubts, so many divisions. We will have to be strong, but nobody will be left by the side of the road.”Ms. Le Pen conceded defeat in her third attempt to become president, but bitterly criticized the “brutal and violent methods” of Mr. Macron, without explaining what she meant. She vowed to fight on to secure a large number of representatives in legislative elections in June, declaring that “French people have this evening shown their desire for a strong counter power to Emmanuel Macron.”Mr. Macron addressed supporters in front of the Eiffel Tower after his victory.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAt a critical moment in Europe, with fighting raging in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, France rejected a candidate hostile to NATO, to the European Union, to the United States, and to its fundamental values that hold that no French citizens should be discriminated against because they are Muslim.Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, said the result reflected “the mobilization of French people for the maintenance of their values and against a narrow vision of France.”The French do not generally love their presidents, and none had succeeded in being re-elected since 2002, let alone by a 17-point margin. Mr. Macron’s unusual achievement in securing five more years in power reflects his effective stewardship over the Covid-19 crisis, his rekindling of the economy, and his political agility in occupying the entire center of the political spectrum.Ms. Le Pen, softening her image if not her anti-immigrant nationalist program, rode a wave of alienation and disenchantment to bring the extreme right closer to power than at any time since 1944. Her National Rally party has joined the mainstream, even if at the last minute many French people clearly voted for Mr. Macron to ensure that France not succumb to the xenophobic vitriol of the darker passages of its history.Ms. Le Pen is a longtime sympathizer with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom she visited at the Kremlin during her last campaign in 2017. She would almost certainly have pursued policies that weakened the united allied front to save Ukraine from Russia’s assault; offered Mr. Putin a breach to exploit in Europe; and undermined the European Union, whose engine has always been a joint Franco-German commitment to it.Marine Le Pen conceded to Mr. Macron, but bitterly criticized his “brutal and violent methods” without explaining what she meant.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesIf Brexit was a blow to unity, a French nationalist quasi-exit, as set out in Ms. Le Pen’s proposals, would have left the European Union on life support. That, in turn, would have crippled an essential guarantor of peace on the continent in a volatile moment.Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, declared that Mr. Macron’s win was “a vote of confidence in Europe.” Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, congratulated the French leader and called France “one of our closest and most important allies.”Mr. Scholz and two other European leaders had taken the unusual step last week of making clear the importance of a vote against Ms. Le Pen in an opinion article in the daily newspaper Le Monde. The letter was a reflection of the anxiety in European capitals and Washington that preceded the vote.“It is the choice between a democratic candidate, who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union, and a far-right candidate, who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy,” they wrote.Mr. Macron’s second victory felt different from his first. Five years ago, he was a 39-year-old wunderkind bursting on the French political scene with a promise to bury sterile left-right divisions and build a more just, equal, open and dynamic society. He organized a massive celebration in the main courtyard of the Louvre to mark the dawn of a new political era in France.Sunday night, given the war in Europe, he asked for sobriety from his supporters. As Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the European hymn, played (but much more softly than in 2017), he walked onto the Champ de Mars holding the hand of his wife, Brigitte. Children surrounded the couple; the choreography conveyed simplicity and humility.Supporters of Mr. Macron celebrated on the Champ de Mars.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesMr. Macron has often been criticized for an aloofness bordering on arrogance during his first term.“We avoided a certain form of violence. I am relieved,” said Eric Maus, 64, a Macron supporter. “But I feel like I am handing my daughter an uncertain world where the extreme right scores so high.”Mr. Macron succeeded in spurring growth, slashing unemployment and instilling a start-up tech culture, but was unable to address growing inequality or simmering anger among the alienated and the struggling in areas of urban blight and rural remoteness. Societal divisions sharpened as incomes stagnated, prices rose and factories moved abroad.As a result, Mr. Macron’s political capital is more limited, even if his clear victory has saved France from a dangerous tilt toward xenophobic nationalism and given him momentum ahead of the June legislative elections.Still, many of the 7.7 million voters who had supported the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election on April 10 voted only reluctantly for Mr. Macron to keep Ms. Le Pen from power. Assina Channa, a Muslim of Algerian descent voting in the suburb of Saint-Denis north of Paris, said, “Nothing is going to change but I had no choice.”Ms. Le Pen had proposed a ban on the Muslim head scarf and has regularly equated Islam with violence in the country with the largest Muslim community in western Europe. “At least he doesn’t threaten us like she does,” Ms. Channa said.A polling station in Saint-Denis.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron acknowledged that “many of our compatriots voted for me today not to support my ideas but to form a dam against the extreme right.” He thanked them and said “I am now entrusted with their sense of duty, their attachment to the Republic and their respect for the differences expressed these past weeks.”Some 28 percent of the electorate abstained, three percentage points higher than in 2017, and it appeared that more than 13 million people had voted for Ms. Le Pen and the extreme right. “The anger and the disagreements that led my compatriots to vote for this project must also find an answer,” Mr. Macron said.It was a speech not of soaring rhetoric but of sober realism, almost at times contrition, reflecting his recognition of a starkly divided France and perhaps also his inattention to those for whom life has been hardest.The dreams of radical change of 2017 have been supplanted by fears of political confrontation over the summer, in part because the dislike of Mr. Macron among his opponents is strong, and in part because the legislative elections in June could result in a National Assembly less pliant to his will.Constantly adjusting his positions, extending the circle of his allies and refining his ideas, Mr. Macron has proved himself a consummate politician, suffocating any would-be moderate challengers. He engineered the near total demise of the center-left Socialist Party and the center-right Republicans, the two political forces at the heart of postwar French politics. It was a remarkable feat.Supporters of Mr. Macron celebrating in Paris on Sunday.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesBut there was a price to pay for all this. The old structure of French politics has collapsed, and it is less clear how the violent conflicts of society can be mediated.Those conflicts have become more acute as anger has grown in the parts of France that have felt neglected, even forgotten, by the elites in major cities. By addressing these concerns, and promising a series of tax cuts to help people cope with rising prices for gas and electricity, Ms. Le Pen built an effective campaign.Her message, for some voters, was that she would care for and protect them while their president seemed to have other concerns. But her nationalist message also resonated among people angered by undocumented immigrants entering the country and seeking scapegoats for the country’s problems.The president’s problems have reflected both his personality and political choices. His highly personalized top-down style of government owed more to Bonaparte than to the democratic opening he had said he would bring to the French presidential system. His attempts to force march Europe toward a vision of “strategic autonomy” backed by its own integrated military has met resistance in the countries like Poland that are most attached to America as a European power.Emerging from the moderate left of the political system, and supported by many Socialists five years ago, Mr. Macron veered to the right both in his initial economic policy and in a much-criticized decision to confront what he called “Islamist separatism” by shutting down several mosques and Islamic associations — often on flimsy legal grounds.He judged that he had more to gain on the right than to fear on the fragmented left of the political spectrum in a country whose psyche has been deeply marked by several Islamist terrorist attacks since 2015. In a sense, his victory proved him correct, the master of a broad web of adjustable allegiances that left his opponents floundering.Aida Alami More

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      How Hated Is Macron? It Could Decide the French Election.

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      Given the choice between a president they suspect of despising ordinary people and a far-right candidate they detest, many French voters may stay home.LE HAVRE, France — As an ardent supporter of President Emmanuel Macron of France, Nicole Liot was all smiles after seeing him at a recent campaign stop. But she was also worried about the final round of the French election this Sunday. In her lifetime, she had never seen such intense dislike for a president among some French.“There are presidents who weren’t hated like this even though they weren’t saints,” Ms. Liot, 80, said, positing that what has become known as Mr. Macron’s “little phrases” fueled the aversion. “Like when he told someone, ‘You’re searching for a job? Just cross the street and you’ll find one.’”As anti-Macron protesters burned tires and blotted the sky with smoke over the northwestern city of Le Havre, Ms. Liot added, “Maybe people won’t forgive him for these mistakes of language and attitude.”No French president has been the object of such intense dislike among significant segments of the population as Mr. Macron — the result, experts say, of his image as an elitist out of touch with the ordinary French people whose pensions and work protections he has threatened in his efforts to make the economy more investor-friendly.Just how deep that loathing runs will be a critical factor — perhaps even the decisive one — in the election against his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen. Recent polls give Mr. Macron a lead of around 10 percentage points — wider than at some points in the campaign, but only a third of his winning margin five years ago.“Macron and the hatred he arouses is unprecedented,” said Nicolas Domenach, a veteran political journalist who has covered the past five French presidents and is the co-author of “Macron: Why So Much Hatred?,” a recently published book. “It stems from a particular alignment. He is the president of the rich and the president of disdain.”Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate, at a meeting in Avignon.Daniel Cole/Associated PressNo doubt Mr. Macron could end up winning re-election despite his unpopularity. Even if a groundswell of voters does not turn out to vote for him, what matters for him is that enough voters come out to vote against her — to build a “dam” against the far right.It is a long-established strategy to erect a so-called “Republican front” against a political force — her party, the National Rally, formerly the National Front — that is seen as a threat to France’s democratic foundations.But given the choice between a president they find disdainful and a far-right candidate they find detestable, many French voters may just stay home, or even vote for Ms. Le Pen, tipping the scales in a close election.Every chance she gets, Ms. Le Pen has done her best to remind voters of “these terrible words” — “these words of disdain” — that now stick to Mr. Macron, as she did at a big campaign rally in the southern city of Avignon last week.“They are the words of a power without empathy,” she said as the crowd booed.Both she and Mr. Macron are now vying in the campaign’s closing days for the voters who cast ballots for other candidates in the first round of the presidential election on April 10, on whom the election now hinges.Waiting for Mr. Macron, while smoke from from tires set on fire as part of a protest against the president rose in the distance.James Hill for The New York TimesThe most critical bloc voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran leftist who came in a strong third. On the left, many feel betrayed by Mr. Macron’s rightward tilt over the course of his presidency.Ms. Le Pen is trying especially to appeal to voters who feel the same emotions of hate and disdain so often heard among Ms. Le Pen’s core backers — many in Mr. Mélenchon’s camp.Roland Lescure, a lawmaker and spokesman for Mr. Macron’s party, La République en Marche, said he was convinced that “rejection for Marine Le Pen” would prove more potent than the dislike for the president, which he recognized.The rejection was not just of the person of Ms. Le Pen, he said, “but above all of an ideology, of a political history and of a platform, which, when one reads it, is extremely harmful.”But Ms. Le Pen has grown so confident in her widening appeal after taking calculated steps to soften her image that she has even dared seize the term “dam” for herself — beseeching voters six times in her rally to build a “dam against Macron.”The calls for dams on both sides underscored how the final vote boils down to an unpopularity contest: The less-disliked candidate wins.It is especially true in this race, which features the same finalists as in 2017. But if Ms. Le Pen was seen as a bulldozer of far-right ideology back then, in the current campaign she has tried to present a softer, more personable side.Mr. Macron meeting with voters on his way to the Museum of Modern Art André Malraux in Le Havre.James Hill for The New York TimesAnd if Mr. Macron was once seen as a fresh face who inspired many with his promises to change an ossified France, this time he has been cast by his haters as a kind of malign king.A former investment banker, whose tax policies have favored the wealthy, Mr. Macron has been unable to shake off his image as the president of the rich, even after his government provided massive subsidies during the pandemic.His “little phrases” over the years to or about regular folk have cemented that unsympathetic image, creating the kind of political and cultural schism opened by Hillary Clinton’s description of Donald J. Trump’s supporters in 2016 as “deplorables.”It has also not helped Mr. Macron that he barely bothered to campaign initially, absorbed in diplomacy around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also as part of a strategy to hold himself out of reach of his opponents.For many French, the approach only reinforced the impression of aloofness from a president who has concentrated powers in his own hands and considered campaigning beneath him.Voting in the first round of the presidential election in the Paris suburb of Trappes. Polls give Mr. Macron around a 10 percentage point lead in the second round.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAs Mr. Macron finally engages the race, he is now being confronted with the raw emotions that have shaped much of his presidency.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

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      In Call Before Jan. 6 Riot, a Plea to ‘Descend on the Capitol’

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      Days before Jan. 6, a onetime aide to Roger J. Stone Jr. told Trump backers to make lawmakers meeting to finalize the 2020 election results feel that “people are breathing down their necks.”One week before an angry mob stormed the Capitol, a communications expert named Jason Sullivan, a onetime aide to Roger J. Stone Jr., joined a conference call with a group of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters and made an urgent plea.After assuring his listeners that the 2020 election had been stolen, Mr. Sullivan told them that they had to go to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that Congress was to meet to finalize the electoral count — and “descend on the Capitol,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.While Mr. Sullivan claimed that he was “not inciting violence or any kind of riots,” he urged those on the call to make their presence felt at the Capitol in a way that would intimidate members of Congress, telling the group that they had to ensure that lawmakers inside the building “understand that people are breathing down their necks.”He also pledged that Mr. Trump was going to take action on his own; the president, he said, was going to impose a form of martial law on Jan. 6 and would not be leaving office.“Biden will never be in that White House,” Mr. Sullivan declared. “That’s my promise to each and every one of you.”Before Riot, Operative Urged Trump Supporters to ‘Descend on the Capitol’ on Jan. 6In a conference call days before the Jan. 6 attack, Jason Sullivan, a onetime aide to Roger J. Stone Jr., exhorted supporters of President Donald J. Trump to go to the Capitol that day and pressure lawmakers meeting to finalize the 2020 election results.The recording of the call, which took place on Dec. 30, 2020, emerged as the Justice Department has expanded its criminal investigation of the Capitol attack. It offers a glimpse of the planning that went on in the run-up to the storming of the Capitol and the mind-set of some of those who zeroed in on Jan. 6 as a kind of last stand for keeping Mr. Trump in office.It also reflects the complexities that federal prosecutors are likely to face as they begin the task of figuring out how much — or even whether — people involved in the political rallies that preceded the assault can be held accountable for the violence that erupted.After more than a year of focusing exclusively on rioters who took part in the storming of the Capitol, prosecutors have widened their gaze in recent weeks and have started to question whether those involved in encouraging protests — like the one that Mr. Sullivan was describing — can be held culpable for disrupting the work of Congress.Mr. Sullivan’s remarks during the call appeared to be an effort to motivate a group of people aggrieved by the election to take direct action against members of Congress on Jan. 6, presaging what Mr. Trump himself would say in a speech that day. While it remains unclear whether anyone on Mr. Sullivan’s call went on to join the mob that breached the Capitol, he seemed to be exhorting his listeners to apply unusual pressure on lawmakers just as they were overseeing the final count of Electoral College votes.In a statement provided by his lawyer, Mr. Sullivan played down the nature of the call, saying he had merely “shared some encouragement” with what he described as “people who all felt their votes had been disenfranchised in the 2020 elections.” Mr. Sullivan said he had been asked to participate in the call by a group of anti-vaccine activists — or what he called “health freedom advocate moms” — who were hosting “a small, permitted event” at the Capitol on Jan. 6.“I only promoted peaceful solutions where Americans could raise their voices and be heard as expressed in our First Amendment,” Mr. Sullivan said in the statement. “I in no way condone the violence of any protesters.”Still, in the recording of the call, Mr. Sullivan can be heard telling his listeners that the lawmakers inside the Capitol “need to feel pressure.”“If we make the people inside that building sweat and they understand that they may not be able to walk in the streets any longer if they do the wrong thing, then maybe they’ll do the right thing,” he said. “We have to put that pressure there.”As the Justice Department widens its inquiry, federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Washington to gather information on political organizers, speakers and so-called V.I.P.s connected to a series of pro-Trump rallies after the 2020 election. One prominent planner of those rallies, Ali Alexander, received a subpoena from the grand jury and said last week that he intended to comply with its requests.In the run-up to Jan. 6, Mr. Alexander publicly discussed a pressure campaign against lawmakers that was meant to stop the final electoral count, saying he was working with Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama and Representatives Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, all Republicans.“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr. Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope. The plan, he said, was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”It is unclear if the Justice Department is aware of Mr. Sullivan’s conference call; the department declined to comment. The House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 was provided with a copy of the recording some months ago by the woman who made it, Staci Burk, a law student and Republican activist from Arizona.Shortly after the election, Ms. Burk became convinced that phony ballots had been flown in bulk into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. She eventually submitted an anonymous affidavit concerning the ballots in an election fraud case filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix by the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: New DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Debating a criminal referral. More

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      Macron Sets Out to Build a ‘Dam’ Against Le Pen. Can It Hold?

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      After Sunday’s vote, when nearly a third of ballots went to the extreme right, a united front of mainstream voters looked more precarious than ever. PARIS — A day after Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, emerged as his challenger for the final round of France’s presidential election in less than two weeks, President Emmanuel Macron immediately set about on Monday to build the “dam.”Dams are the mainstream French voters who, time and again, have put political differences aside in the second round and voted for anyone but a Le Pen in a so-called “Republican front” to deny the far right the presidency.But after Sunday’s first round, when 32 percent of French voters supported candidates on the extreme right — a record — the dam may be more precarious than ever.Mr. Macron, widely criticized for a listless campaign, moved quickly Monday to shore it up, directly challenging Ms. Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, in the economically depressed north where she dominated Sunday.In Denain, a city won by Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Macron spoke of the worries of the youth in Denain and other social issues. He tried to remind voters of the extremist roots of Ms. Le Pen’s party, referring to it by its old name, the National Front.At a campaign stop of her own in a rural area, Yonne, Ms. Le Pen said that the dam was a dishonest strategy to win an election, adding that “it’s a way to save yourself when you don’t deserve it.’’In a triumphant speech against the majestic backdrop of the Louvre Museum five years ago, Mr. Macron had launched his presidency by pledging to unite the French so that there would be “no reason at all to vote for the extremes.’’But in addition to Ms. Le Pen’s second-place finish, with 23 percent of the vote, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist veteran, won 22 percent of Sunday’s votes to finish a strong third. Mr. Mélenchon’s supporters — split in their attitudes toward Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen — could now help determine the election’s final outcome on April 24.Outside a small market in Amiens, France, in March. Mr. Macron quickly moved Monday to challenge Ms. Le Pen in the economically depressed north where he lost to her even in Amiens, his hometown.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesAfter five years of Mr. Macron, who trounced Ms. Le Pen in the 2017 runoff, the far-right leader emerged stronger than ever. She has softened her image in a successful process of “undemonizing’’ and focused relentlessly on ordinary voters’ economic hardship.In Yonne, Ms. Le Pen hammered away at the themes that carried her through to the second round. Meeting with a cereal farmer, she spoke of how rising prices of fuel and fertilizers following the war in Ukraine would raise the cost of staples at supermarkets and hurt the most vulnerable.The far right’s record performance on Sunday resulted from a combination of factors, including Ms. Le Pen’s own efforts to revamp her image, a successful cultural battle waged by conservative forces in recent years, and a series of Islamist attacks in France since 2015. But critics say that it also reflected Mr. Macron’s continued strategy of triangulating France’s electoral landscape. While Mr. Macron was regarded as a center-left candidate five years ago, he shifted rightward during his presidency, sensing that his main challenge would come from Ms. Le Pen. That shift was embodied by a series of laws toughening France’s stance on immigration, empowering the police, and combating Islamist extremism. Many working French also felt that his economic policies unfairly favored the rich and have left them more adrift.If Mr. Macron’s intention was to defuse Ms. Le Pen’s appeal by stripping her of her core issues, critics say the approach backfired by ushering the talking points of the far right deeper into the mainstream political debate. Then, Ms. Le Pen also shifted her message to pocketbook issues that have now resonated even more broadly as energy prices spike because of the war in Ukraine.Sacha Houlié, a lawmaker and a spokesman for Mr. Macron’s campaign, said that the president was aiming to strengthen the dam strategy. He acknowledged that there have been “some mistakes” and “blunders,” noting that some government ministers had picked up themes and expressions promoted by the far right. Supporters of Ms. Le Pen singing the national anthem at her rally after voting results were announced on Sunday. Mr. Macron has described the far-right leader as a danger to French democracy.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut Mr. Houlié denied that Mr. Macron had normalized far-right ideas, saying his government had mainly tried to respond to people’s growing concerns on crime and immigration. “We cannot sweep the dust under the carpet,” he said, referring to the issues. But many, especially Mr. Mélenchon’s supporters of the left, feel so betrayed that Mr. Macron may have a harder time in this next election persuading them to join his call for unity by building a dam against Ms. Le Pen, whom the president has called a danger to democracy. Alexis Lévrier, a historian who has written about Mr. Macron’s relations with the news media, said that as Mr. Macron tried to reshape French politics around a strict divide between his mainstream movement and Ms. Le Pen, he “contributed to the rise in power of the far right.” Unwittingly, “he’s a pyromaniac firefighter,” Mr. Lévrier said.A resident of Guyancourt — a well-off, left-leaning city southwest of Paris where Mr. Mélenchon came in first Sunday — Stéphanie Noury said that, in 2017, she gave Mr. Macron her vote as part of a dam against the far right. But this time, she planned to stay home for the final round.“Macron played into the hands of the extreme right,’’ said Ms. Noury, 55, a human resources manager who voted Sunday for Mr. Mélenchon. “He told himself that he would always win against the extreme right.’’Compared to 2017, Ms. Le Pen’s share of the first-round vote went up by a couple of percentage points despite the direct challenge of a new rival, the far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who urged his supporters to vote for Ms. Le Pen in the upcoming showdown.On Sunday, Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour and a third far-right candidate, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, together got 32 percent of the vote. In 2017, Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Dupont-Aignan collected 26 percent in the first round.Ms. Le Pen meeting supporters at a rally in Stiring-Wendel, France, on April 1. The far-right candidate has sought to soften her image.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesVoters first formed a dam against the extreme right in 2002 when Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, shocked the political establishment by making it into a runoff against Jacques Chirac. Another dam helped defeat Ms. Le Pen in 2017.To gain credibility on the right, in 2019, Mr. Macron gave his first long interview on the sensitive issues of immigration and Islam to Valeurs Actuelles, a magazine that straddles the right and far right.“By talking to us, Emmanuel Macron came to seek some legitimacy on these subjects, from right-wing people who felt he was doing nothing,” said Geoffroy Lejeune, the publication’s editor. “He knows that by doing this, he’s sending a big signal.” Aurélien Taché, a lawmaker once allied with Mr. Macron, said the president was elected in 2017 thanks to voters who put aside their political differences and united against Ms. Le Pen. He said Mr. Macron should have taken those votes — mainly from the left — into account in his policies afterward.“He did not consider them,” he said, adding that Mr. Macron instead worked to “set up this cleavage’’ between him and Ms. Le Pen, leading to a “high-risk rematch.”“There have been, on a whole range of topics, very strong concessions made to the far right,” Mr. Taché said, also citing tougher immigration rules and the application of a stricter version of French secularism, called laïcité.A migrant family waiting for emergency accommodation with a host family in front of the Paris City Hall last year. Some allies distanced themselves from Mr. Macron after he toughened his stance on immigration.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut Mr. Taché, who quit Mr. Macron’s party in 2020 over the president’s shift to the right, was especially critical of the government’s landmark law against separatism, which has been criticized inside and outside France, including by the U.S. envoy on international religious freedom. The law amounted to “making Islam and Muslims invisible,” Mr. Taché said. Some academics, political opponents and Muslim organizations have also criticized the law as discriminating against French Muslims by leading to the widespread closing of mosques, Muslim associations and schools.That resentment may now also complicate Mr. Macron’s dam-building effort. To be re-elected this time, for instance, he will have to persuade voters in places likes Trappes, a working-class city with a large Muslim population southwest of Paris, to join the dam against Ms. Le Pen. A longtime stronghold of Mélenchon supporters, Trappes strongly backed Mr. Macron in the 2017 runoff. But comments by voters Sunday suggested that the dam might not be as effective this time. Frédéric Renan, 47, a computer programmer, said he would abstain or cast a blank vote in a showdown between Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen.“Macron opened the door to the extreme right,’’ Mr. Renan said, adding that the president’s economic policies hurt the poor and fueled the rise of the far right. “I don’t see how voting for Macron is a vote in a dam against the extreme right,” he said. “Some people will say that not participating in the dam against the extreme right is irresponsible, that the threat of the extreme right is greater than what Emmanuel Macron proposes, but I’m not convinced.’’The Islamic Center of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in Trappes, a Paris suburb, on Sunday. To be re-elected, Mr. Macron will need to woo voters in places likes Trappes, a working-class city with a large Muslim population.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAdèle Cordonnier More

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      Macron to Face Le Pen for President as French Gravitate Toward Extremes

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      President Emmanuel Macron and the hard-right leader Marine Le Pen will compete for a second time in a runoff on April 24.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, in the runoff of France’s presidential elections.With 92 percent of the ballots cast on Sunday counted, Mr. Macron, a centrist, was leading with about 27.4 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 24.3 percent. Ms. Le Pen benefited from a late surge that reflected widespread disaffection over rising prices, security and immigration.With war raging in Ukraine and Western unity likely to be tested as the fighting continues, Ms. Le Pen’s strong performance demonstrated the enduring appeal of nationalist and xenophobic currents in Europe. Extreme parties of the right and left took some 51 percent of the vote, a clear sign of the extent of French anger and frustration.An anti-NATO and more pro-Russia France in the event of an ultimate Le Pen victory would cause deep concern in allied capitals, and could fracture the united trans-Atlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.But Mr. Macron, after a lackluster campaign, will go into the second round as the slight favorite, having fared a little better than the latest opinion polls suggested. Some had shown him leading Ms. Le Pen by just two points.Marine Le Pen speaking after the first-round results were announced on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe principled French rejection of Ms. Le Pen’s brand of anti-immigrant nationalism has frayed as illiberal politics have spread in both Europe and the United States. She has successfully softened her packaging, if not her fierce conviction that French people must be privileged over foreigners and that the curtain must be drawn on France as a “land of immigration.”Ms. Le Pen’s ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are close, although she has scrambled in recent weeks to play them down. This month, she was quick to congratulate Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist and anti-immigrant leader, on his fourth consecutive victory in parliamentary elections.“I will restore France to order in five years,” Ms. Le Pen declared to cheering supporters, appealing to all French people to join her in what she called “a choice of civilization” in which the “legitimate preponderance of French language and culture” would be guaranteed and full “sovereignty reestablished in all domains.”The choice confronting French people on April 24 was between “division, injustice and disorder” on the one hand, and the “rallying of French people around social justice and protection,” she said.Mr. Macron told flag-waving supporters: “I want a France in a strong Europe that maintains its alliances with the big democracies in order to defend itself, not a France that, outside Europe, would have as its only allies the populist and xenophobic International. That is not us.”He added: “Don’t deceive ourselves, nothing is decided, and the debate we will have in the next 15 days is decisive for our country and for Europe.”A polling station in Pontoise on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesLast week, in an interview in the daily Le Parisien newspaper, Mr. Macron called Ms. Le Pen “a racist” of “great brutality.” Ms. Le Pen hit back, saying that the president’s remarks were “outrageous and aggressive.” She called favoring French people over foreigners “the only moral, legal and admissible policy.”The gloves will be off as they confront each other over the future of France, at a time when Britain’s exit from the European Union and the end of Angela Merkel’s long chancellorship in Germany have placed a particular onus on French leadership.Mr. Macron wants to transform Europe into a credible military power with “strategic autonomy.” Ms. Le Pen, whose party has received funding from a Russian and, more recently, a Hungarian bank, has other priorities.The runoff, on April 24, will be a repeat of the last election, in 2017, when Mr. Macron, then a relative newcomer to politics intent on shattering old divisions between left and right, trounced Ms. Le Pen with 66.9 percent of the vote to her 33.1 percent.The final result this time will almost certainly be much closer than five years ago. Polls taken before Sunday’s vote indicated Mr. Macron winning by just 52 percent to 48 percent against Ms. Le Pen in the second round. That could shift in the coming two weeks, when the candidates will debate for the first time in the campaign.Reflecting France’s drift to the right in recent years, no left-of-center candidate qualified for the runoff. The Socialist Party, long a pillar of postwar French politics, collapsed, leaving Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left anti-NATO candidate with his France Unbowed movement, to take third place with about 21 percent.Supporters of Mr. Macron in Paris on Sunday.James Hill for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen, who leads the National Rally, formerly the National Front, was helped by the candidacy of Éric Zemmour, a fiercely xenophobic TV pundit turned politician, who became the go-to politician for anti-immigrant provocation, which made her look more mainstream and innocuous. In the end, Mr. Zemmour’s campaign faded, and he took about 7 percent of the vote.Mr. Zemmour immediately called on his supporters to back Ms. Le Pen in the second round. “Opposing Ms. Le Pen there is a man who allowed 2 million immigrants to enter France,” Mr. Zemmour declared.The threatening scenario for Mr. Macron is that Mr. Zemmour’s vote will go to Ms. Le Pen, and that she will be further bolstered by the wide section of the left that feels betrayed or just viscerally hostile toward the president, as well as by some center-right voters for whom immigration is the core issue.More than half of French people — supporters of Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour and Mr. Mélenchon — now appear to favor parties that are broadly anti-NATO, anti-American and hostile to the European Union. By contrast, the broad center — Mr. Macron’s La République en Marche party, the Socialist Party, the center right Republicans and the Green Party — took a combined total of about 40 percent.These were numbers that revealed the extent of anxiety in France, and perhaps also the extent of distrust of its democracy. They will be more comforting to Ms. Le Pen than to Mr. Macron, even if Mr. Mélenchon said his supporters should not give “a single vote” to Ms. Le Pen.He declined, however, to endorse Mr. Macron.At Ms. Le Pen’s headquarters, Frederic Sarmiento, an activist, said, “She will benefit from a big transfer of votes,” pointing to supporters of Mr. Zemmour, but also some on the left who, according to polls, will support Ms. Le Pen in the second round.Immigrant families awaiting emergency accommodation outside the Paris city hall last April.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“I am very worried, it will be a very close runoff,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “Many on the left will abstain rather than vote Macron.”Mr. Macron gained the immediate support for the second round of the defeated Socialist, Communist, Green and center-right candidates, but between them they amounted to no more than 15 percent of the first-round vote. He may also benefit from a late surge in support of the Republic in a country with bitter wartime experience of extreme-right rule.In the end, the election on Sunday came down to Mr. Macron against the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, a sign of his effective dismantlement of the old political order. Now built essentially around a personality — the restless president — French democracy does not appear to have arrived at any sustainable alternative structure.If the two runoff qualifiers are the same as in 2017, they have been changed by circumstances. Where Mr. Macron represented reformist hope in 2017, he is now widely seen as a leader who drifted to the right and a top-down, highly personalized style of government. The sheen is off him.On the place of Islam in France, on immigration controls and on police powers, Mr. Macron has taken a hard line, judging that the election would be won or lost to his right.Addressing his supporters after the vote Sunday, he said he wants a France that “fights resolutely against Islamist separatism” — a term he uses to describe conservative or radical Muslims who reject French values like gender equality — but also a France that allows all believers to practice their faiths.A polling place at the Versailles town hall.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis rightward shift had a cost. The center-left, once the core of his support, felt betrayed. To what extent the left will vote for him in the second round will be a main source of concern, as already reflected in Mr. Macron’s abrupt recent catch-up paeans to “fraternity,” “solidarity” and equality of opportunity.Throughout the campaign, Mr. Macron appeared disengaged, taken up with countless telephone calls to Mr. Putin that proved ineffectual.A comfortable lead in polls disappeared in recent weeks as resentment grew over the president’s detachment. He had struggled during the five years of his presidency to overcome an image of aloofness, learning to reach out to more people, only to suffer an apparent relapse in the past several weeks.Still, Mr. Macron steered the country through the long coronavirus crisis, brought unemployment to its lowest level in a decade and lifted economic growth. Doing so, he has convinced many French people that he has what it takes to lead and to represent France with dignity on the world stage.Ms. Le Pen, who would be France’s first woman president, is also seen differently. Now in her third attempt to become president — Jacques Chirac won in 1995 after twice failing — she bowed to reason (and popular opinion) on two significant fronts: dropping her prior vows to take France out of the European Union and the eurozone. Still, many of her proposals — like barring E.U. citizens from some of the same social benefits as French citizens — would infringe fundamental European treaties.The leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, toned down her language to look more “presidential.” She smiled a lot, opening up about her personal struggles, and she gave the impression of being closer to the day-to-day concerns of French people, especially with regard to sharply rising gas prices and inflation.But many things did not change. Her program includes a plan to hold a referendum that would lead to a change in the Constitution that would ban any policies that lead to “the installation on national territory of a number of foreigners so large that it would change the composition and identity of the French people.”She also wants to bar Muslim women from wearing head scarves and fine them if they do.Polling booths in Trappes on Sunday. The first round of voting saw the highest abstention rate in decades.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe abstention rate Sunday, at between about 26 and 28 percent, was several points above the last election. Not since 2002 has it been so high.This appeared to reflect disillusionment with politics as a change agent, the ripple effect of the war in Ukraine and lost faith in democracy. It was part of the same anger that pushed so many French people toward political extremes.Aurelien Breeden More

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      How Marine Le Pen Threatens to Upend French Elections

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      The far-right presidential candidate has opened up about her personal life and tweaked her policies to gain sympathy and credibility among more mainstream voters.STIRING-WENDEL, France — Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader making her third attempt to become president of France, already had the backing of voters who came to listen to her recently in Stiring-Wendel, a former coal-mining town struggling to reinvent itself.But after a 40-minute speech focusing on the rising cost of living, Ms. Le Pen succeeded in doing what even few of her supporters would have predicted just months ago: impressing them. Voters trickling out of an auditorium into the cold evening said she had become “less extreme,” more “mature” and “self-assured” — even “presidential.”“She has softened, she is more composed, calmer, more serene,” said Yohan Brun, 19, a student who grew up in Stiring-Wendel and had come to listen to Ms. Le Pen because “she cares more about the French people than the other candidates.”As France votes on Sunday, polls are predicting that this election will be a rematch of the previous one, pitting Ms. Le Pen against President Emmanuel Macron in a second-round showdown. But that does not mean that precisely the same Ms. Le Pen is running.Ms. Le Pen has revamped her image since the last election five years ago. She has pragmatically abandoned certain ideas that had alienated mainstream voters. She has held on to others that certify her far-right credentials. And she has shifted emphasis toward pocketbook issues.Some who attended Ms. Le Pen’s speech in Stiring-Wendel said she had become “less extreme,” more “mature” and even “presidential.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut as important, she has self-consciously sanded the rough edges off her persona in an effort to make herself appear more presidential and voter-friendly.The makeover is part of a long and deliberate strategy by Ms. Le Pen to “undemonize” herself and her party, and ultimately gain the French presidency. While the effort remains unconvincing to many who consider her a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it has nonetheless succeeded in giving her a last-minute surge in the polls before Sunday’s election that is worrying Mr. Macron’s camp.“Marine Le Pen appears more sympathetic than Emmanuel Macron,” said Pierre Person, a national lawmaker of the president’s party, adding that he was worried that she could win. More

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      Even Before France Votes, the French Right Is a Big Winner

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      The dominance of right-wing ideas in France’s presidential election campaign follows years of cultural wars waged successfully by conservatives on television, in social media and in think tanks.PARIS — With just days to go before the first round of France’s presidential election, President Emmanuel Macron is still the odds-on favorite to make it through the political juggernaut and win a second term. But even if he does succeed, and before a single ballot is cast, another clear winner has already emerged from the race.The French right.Despite a late surge by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leading left-wing candidate, virtually the entire French campaign has been fought on the right and far right, whose candidates dominate the polls and whose themes and talking points — issues of national identity, immigration and Islam — have dominated the political debate. The far right has even become the champion of pocketbook issues, traditionally the left’s turf.Mr. Macron himself has pivoted to the right so consistently to confront the challenge that there is even discussion now of whether he should be regarded as a center-right president, though he emerged from a government run by the now-moribund Socialists in 2017.In a tightening race, the candidate he is most likely to face in a runoff two weeks from Sunday’s initial voting is Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Rally, according to polls. It would be her second consecutive appearance in the final round of the presidential election, cementing her place in the political establishment.“The great movement to the right — that’s done, it’s over,” said Gaël Brustier, a political analyst and former adviser to left-wing politicians. “It won’t set off in the other direction for 20 years.”Ms. Le Pen is the candidate most likely to face President Emmanuel Macron in a runoff two weeks from initial voting, according to polls.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen and her party for decades softened the ground for the growth of the right. But the right’s recent political ascendancy follows many years in which conservatives have successfully waged a cultural battle — greatly inspired by the American right and often adopting its codes and strategies to attract a more youthful audience.Not only has the French right in recent months wielded the idea of “wokisme” to effectively stifle the left and blunt what it sees as the threat of a “woke culture” from American campuses. But it also has busily established a cultural presence after years with few, if any, media outlets in the mainstream.Today the French right has burst through social barriers and is represented by its own version of a Fox-style television news channel, CNews, an expanding network of think tanks, and multiple social media platforms with a substantial and increasingly younger following.These things “did not exist in France or were at the embryonic stage” just a few years ago, said François de Voyer, 38, a host and financial backer of Livre Noir, a year-old YouTube channel focusing on politicians on the right and far right.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionThe run-up to the first round of the election has been dominated by issues such as security, immigration and national identity.Suddenly Wide Open: An election that had seemed almost assured to return President Emmanuel Macron to power now appears to be anything but certain as the far-right leader Marine Le Pen surges.The New French Right: A rising nationalist faction has grown its coalition by appealing to Catholic identity and anti-immigrant sentiment.Challenges to Re-election: A troubled factory in Mr. Macron’s hometown shows his struggle in winning the confidence of French workers.Behind the Scene: In France, where political finance laws are strict, control over the media has provided an avenue for billionaires to influence the election.A Political Bellwether: Auxerre has backed the winner in the presidential race for 40 years. This time, many residents see little to vote for.Private Consultants: A report showing that firms like McKinsey earned large sums of money to do work for his government has put Mr. Macron on the defensive.“We told ourselves, ‘Let’s do like CPAC in the United States,’” said Mr. de Voyer, referring to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of the right wing of American politics.So he did.In 2019, Mr. de Voyer co-organized “The Convention of the Right,” a one-day conference that featured leading figures of the right and the far right. It constituted a political launchpad for Éric Zemmour, the TV pundit and best-selling author.Mr. Macron has consistently pivoted to the right, so much so that there has been discussion of whether he should be regarded as a center-right president.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesMore than any other presidential hopeful, Mr. Zemmour has embodied the effects of the right’s cultural battle on the campaign.In his best-selling books and on his daily appearances on CNews, Mr. Zemmour over a decade became a leader of the new right-wing media ecosystem that painted France as being under an existential threat by Muslim immigrants and their descendants, as well as by the importation of multicultural ideas from the United States.Though he has now receded in the polls, to about 10 percent support, Mr. Zemmour’s meteoric rise last year captured France’s attention and ensured that the presidential campaign would be fought almost exclusively on the right’s home turf, as he successfully widened the boundaries of what was politically acceptable in France.Mr. Zemmour brought into the mainstream a racist conspiracy theory that white Christian populations are being intentionally replaced by nonwhite immigrants, said Raphaël Llorca, a French communication expert and member of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute.The “great replacement,” as the theory is called, was later picked up as a talking point even by Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the establishment center-right Republican Party.Such penetration into the mainstream is the result of a decade-old organizational effort by the right.Thibaut Monnier, a former councilor for Ms. Le Pen’s party who then joined Mr. Zemmour’s movement, said that in the mid-2010s conservatives like him set for themselves a “metapolitical” project of creating new political institutions and their own media.Éric Zemmour, right, and a French TV host before a French political show in February. Mr. Zemmour has embodied the effects of the right’s cultural battle on the campaign.Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2018, along with Marion Maréchal, the niece of Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Monnier co-founded a conservative political institution in Lyon called Issep, or the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences. The school is an alternative to what he describes as higher-education establishments dominated by the left.But even as it elbowed its way into the educational establishment, the far right also succeeded in a parallel campaign to spread its ideas on social media to make itself appear attractively transgressive.Central to Mr. Zemmour’s cultural battle has been his command of social media and pop culture codes, Mr. Llorca said.The far-right candidate is very active on networks like TikTok and Instagram, where he posts daily messages and videos aimed at a younger audience. His YouTube campaign-launching video, riddled with cultural references, drew millions of viewers.Mr. Llorca said that Mr. Zemmour had successfully waged a “battle of the cool” designed to “play down the radical content” of his ideas without ever changing their substance. He has been helped by a network of internet users who defuse with humor the violence of his extremist ideas. On Facebook and Instagram, accounts followed by tens of thousands of people frequently post lighthearted memes about Mr. Zemmour.Mr. Zemmour has received support from far-right YouTube influencers mocking everything from feminism to veganism to trade unions. One such influencer, Papacito, whose videos sometimes reach one million views, endorsed Mr. Zemmour recently.Families waiting for emergency accommodation in Paris. Mr. Zemmour has brought into the mainstream a racist conspiracy theory that white Christian populations are being intentionally replaced by nonwhite immigrants.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Our goal is really to make a countercultural Canal+,” he told the magazine Valeurs Actuelles, referring to the entertainment TV channel that dominated the progressive cultural scene in the 1980s and 1990s. “One that is just as fun, but carrying patriotic and more reactionary ideas.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      New Focus on How a Trump Tweet Incited Far-Right Groups Ahead of Jan. 6

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      Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators are documenting how the former president’s “Be there, will be wild!” post became a catalyst for militants before the Capitol assault.Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have gathered growing evidence of how a tweet by President Donald J. Trump less than three weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, served as a crucial call to action for extremist groups that played a central role in storming the Capitol.Mr. Trump’s Twitter post in the early hours of Dec. 19, 2020, was the first time he publicly urged supporters to come to Washington on the day Congress was scheduled to certify the Electoral College results showing Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the presidential vote. His message — which concluded with, “Be there, will be wild!” — has long been seen as instrumental in drawing the crowds that attended a pro-Trump rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 and then marched to the Capitol.But the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the riot and the parallel inquiry by the House select committee have increasingly shown how Mr. Trump’s post was a powerful catalyst, particularly for far-right militants who believed he was facing his final chance to reverse defeat and whose role in fomenting the violence has come under intense scrutiny.Extremist groups almost immediately celebrated Mr. Trump’s Twitter message, which they widely interpreted as an invitation to descend on the city in force. Responding to the president’s words, the groups sprang into action, court filings and interviews by the House committee show: Extremists began to set up encrypted communications channels, acquire protective gear and, in one case, prepare heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside Washington.They also began to whip up their members with a drumbeat of bellicose language, with their private messaging channels increasingly characterized by what one called an “apocalyptic tone.” Directly after Mr. Trump’s tweet was posted, the Capitol Police began to see a spike in right-wing threats against members of Congress.Prosecutors have included examples in at least five criminal cases of extremists reacting within days — often hours — to Mr. Trump’s post.The mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesOne of those who responded to the post was Guy Wesley Reffitt, an oil-field worker from Texas who this month became the first Jan. 6 defendant to be convicted at trial. Within a day of Mr. Trump’s Twitter post, Mr. Reffitt was talking about it on a private group chat with other members of the far-right militia organization the Texas Three Percenters.“Our President will need us. ALL OF US…!!! On January 6th,” Mr. Reffitt wrote. “We the People owe him that debt. He Sacrificed for us and we must pay that debt.”The next day, prosecutors say, Mr. Reffitt began to make arrangements to travel to Washington and arrive in time for “Armageddon all day” on Jan. 6, he wrote in the Three Percenters group chat. He told his compatriots that he planned to drive because flying was impossible with “all the battle rattle” he planned to bring — a reference to his weapons and body armor, prosecutors say.Some in the group appeared to share his anger. On Dec. 22, one member wrote in the chat, “The only way you will be able to do anything in DC is if you get the crowd to drag the traitors out.”Mr. Reffitt responded: “I don’t think anyone going to DC has any other agenda.”The House committee has also sharpened its focus on how the tweet set off a chain reaction that galvanized Mr. Trump’s supporters to begin military-style planning for Jan. 6. As part of the congressional inquiry, investigators are trying to establish whether there was any coordination beyond the post that ties Mr. Trump’s inner circle to the militants and whether the groups plotted together.“That tweet could be viewed as a call to action,” said Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. “It’s definitely something we’re asking questions about through our discussions with witnesses. We want to know whether the president’s tweets inflamed and mobilized individuals to take action.”On the day of the post, participants in TheDonald.win, a pro-Trump chat board, began sharing tactics and techniques for attacking the Capitol, the committee noted in a report released on Sunday recommending contempt of Congress charges for Dan Scavino Jr., Mr. Trump’s former deputy chief of staff. In one thread on the chat board related to the tweet, the report pointed out, an anonymous poster wrote that Mr. Trump “can’t exactly openly tell you to revolt. This is the closest he’ll ever get.’’Lawyers for the militants have repeatedly said that the groups were simply acting defensively in preparing for Jan. 6. They had genuine concerns, the lawyers said, that leftist counterprotesters might confront them, as they had at earlier pro-Trump rallies.Mr. Trump’s post came as his efforts to hang onto power were shifting from the courts, where he had little success, to the streets and to challenging the certification process that would play out on Jan. 6.A week before his message, thousands of his supporters had arrived in Washington for the second time in two months for a large-scale rally protesting the election results. The event on Dec. 12, 2020, which Mr. Trump flew over in Marine One, showed his ability to draw huge crowds of ordinary people in support of his baseless assertions that the election had been stolen.But it also brought together at the same time and place extremist and paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the 1st Amendment Praetorian, who would be present on Jan. 6.On Dec. 14, the Electoral College met and officially declared Mr. Biden the winner of the election.An event in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020 showed the former president’s ability to draw huge crowds in support of his lies that the election had been stolen.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut behind closed doors, outside advisers to Mr. Trump were scrambling to pitch him on plans to seize control of voting machines across the country. The debate over doing so came to a head in a contentious Oval Office meeting that lasted well into the evening on Dec. 18, 2020, and ended with the idea being put aside.Hours later, the president pushed send on his tweet.“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he wrote at 1:42 a.m. on Dec. 19. “Be there, will be wild!”Almost at once, shock waves rippled through the right.At 2:26 a.m., the prominent white nationalist Nicholas J. Fuentes wrote on Twitter that he planned to join Mr. Trump in Washington on Jan. 6. By that afternoon, the post had been mentioned or amplified by other right-wing figures like Ali Alexander, a high-profile “Stop the Steal” organizer.But Mr. Trump’s message arguably landed with the greatest impact among members of the same extremist groups that had been in Washington on Dec. 12.On Dec. 15, Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the Oath Keepers, posted an open letter to Mr. Trump urging him to invoke the Insurrection Act. The next day, the national council of the Three Percenters Original group issued a statement, saying their members were “standing by to answer the call from our president.”Once the call came, early on Dec. 19, the extremists were ecstatic.Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the Oath Keepers, declared a few days after Mr. Trump’s tweet that there would be “a massively bloody revolution” if Joseph R. Biden Jr. ever took office.Susan Walsh/Associated Press“Trump said It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!!,” Kelly Meggs, a Florida leader of the Oath Keepers, wrote on Facebook on Dec. 22. “He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC.”That same day, Mr. Rhodes did an interview with one of his lieutenants and declared that there would be “a massively bloody revolution” if Mr. Biden took office.On Dec. 23, Mr. Rhodes posted another letter saying that “tens of thousands of patriot Americans” would be in Washington on Jan. 6, and that many would have their “mission-critical gear” stowed outside the city.The letter said members of the group — largely composed of former military and law enforcement personnel — might have to “take arms in defense of our God-given liberty.”Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Trump’s tweet. More