French Election Results Show Europeans' Desire to 'Restore' Europe

ATHENS (Sputnik) — On Sunday, French citizens cast their votes in the first round of the French presidential election, choosing a candidate from a pool of 11 nominees to become the country's next president. With 97% of votes counted, French far-right National Front presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has received 21.42 percent of the votes, while her rival, centrist Emmanuel Macron is leading after the first election round after winning 23.86 percent.

"European culture demonstrates its desire to restore. The results of the recent elections across Europe, and yesterday's results in France prove it… European people do not want to leave the remainder of Nazism and Fascism, breaking the progress of the European civilization, and yesterday's results of the voting in France showed it," Pavlopoulos said at a Forum of Ancient Civilizations in Athens.

Pavlopoulos stressed that western civilization should return to its roots which stemmed from ancient Greece, Rome, Jerusalem and which were based on peace and solidarity.

The two-day conference,  a Forum of Ancient Civilizations, kicked of on Sunday and features representatives from China, India, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia as well as Greece. During the conference, the states which descend from civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Chinese empire, Persia and the Incas meet to advocate cultural heritage and interaction among its participants.