French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won a second term Sunday, the first French head of state in two decades to win a second term.

The second five-year term for the 44-year-old acknowledged that “numerous” voters cast ballots for him simply to keep out the fiercely nationalist far-right Le Pen.

Macron pledged to reunite the country that is “filled with so many doubts, so many divisions” and work to assuage the anger of French voters that fed Le Pen’s campaign.

During her campaign, Le Pen pledged to dilute French ties with the 27-nation EU, NATO and Germany, moves that would have shaken Europe’s security architecture as the continent deals with its worst conflict since World War II.

Le Pen also spoke against EU sanctions on Russian energy supplies and faced scrutiny during the campaign over her previous friendliness with the Kremlin.

A chorus of European leaders hailed Macron’s victory, since France has played a leading role in international efforts to punish Russia with sanctions and is supplying weapons to Ukraine.

However, support for Le Pen's economic nationalism is high among the region's blue collar workforce, in places like Henin-Beaumont in northern France. There is also a deep disdain among these folks for a president seen as out of touch with regular folk.

Le Pen, who ran for president a third time, vowed to keep up the fight in parliamentary elections in June.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi called Macron’s victory “splendid news for all of Europe” and a boost to the EU “being a protagonist in the greatest challenges of our times, starting with the war in Ukraine.”

Macron won with 58.5% of the vote to Le Pen’s 41.5%, much closer than in 2017.