No, France is not yet lost to the EU.

The voters answered the Cassandra calls with a clear vote in favor of Emmanuel Macron.

With 27.6 percent of the votes, the incumbent took first place in the first ballot, ahead of Marine Le Pen. This puts him in a good starting position for the runoff.

But it's too early to give the all-clear.

Macron can no longer hide behind the high walls of the Elysée Palace.

He must finally fight for his ideas and not shy away from confrontation.

Instead of raising his compatriots' awareness of the turning point that the Russian war of aggression means at the gates of Europe, the president liked to pose as a distant statesman during the election campaign.

It is a democratic indictment that he refused to engage in duels with his political challengers.

Macron dismissed the lessons of the public debates after the "yellow vest" crisis far too quickly, and let his compatriots' calls for decision-making processes close to the citizens go unheeded.

The courage to take risks was lacking

Macron also lacked the courage to take risks by opting against electoral reform.

France's democracy suffers from majority voting, which puts smaller political forces at a disadvantage.

He stopped halfway on the “radically new path” promised in 2017.

Now is a third chance for dialogue and humility.

The party landscape leaves him little choice.

The former governing parties have faded into insignificance.

This means that the electoral reserves that Macron was able to mobilize in the second ballot in 2017 are also missing.

The mayor of the capital Paris, Anne Hidalgo, as a socialist presidential candidate, received only 1.74 percent of the vote.

It didn't help that she relied on the support of Olaf Scholz (SPD).

The defeat of the right-wing candidate Valérie Pécresse, who was supported by the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz, is similarly dramatic.

With 4.79 percent of the votes, the leader of the capital region Île-de-France achieved the worst result of her party since the founding of the Fifth Republic.

The fact that she missed the five percent hurdle and therefore cannot claim the state reimbursement of campaign costs is particularly bitter.

She now has to beg for donations.

Everything looks as if the parliamentary elections in June could deal the party's deathblow.

For the German sister parties, the question of a partner in France arises again.

Vladimir Putin's shadow is also hanging over the election decision in the EU's second largest economy.

For years, Le Pen vied for the favor of the Kremlin ruler.

With her program, she follows his strategy of splitting the EU as an "ever closer union" and destroying it from within.

On Sunday it became clear how great the risk is that a Putin friend will move into the Elysée Palace.

For the second time in a row, Le Pen has qualified for the runoff.

She has improved her result from five years ago to more than eight million votes.

This corresponds to an increase of a good 430,000 votes.

Other fervent admirers of Putin, such as political career changer Éric Zemmour, immediately received 2.4 million votes.

The right-wing candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, whom Le Pen wanted to make her prime minister in 2017, is further strengthening the pro-Putin, anti-EU camp.

A new pole has formed to the right of Macron, which together received 32.5 percent of the votes.

This pole is growing despite, not because of, the daily news about the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

The war makes the headlines, but has hardly played a role in the election campaign.

That is likely to change, as Le Pen's ties to the Kremlin have so far been insignificant.

There has also been little debate about its European policy program.

Rather, she knew how to stage herself as the protector of the little people and advocate of purchasing power.

If she had her way, the second ballot would be a referendum against Macron.

She has the referendum of May 2005 in mind.

At that time, an anti-European majority from left and right brought down the European constitutional treaty.

Now it depends on the voters of the left-leaning tribune Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was just behind Le Pen with 21.95 percent.

Mélenchon has called for "not a single vote" to be given to Le Pen.

This is not a recommendation.

But his words could get Macron re-elected.