FRANCE PERSPECTIVE

Paris describes the event with a grammar that is neither triumphalist nor accusatory — that of analyzing a continental shift. Le Monde opens with the most-circulated formula of Sunday night: "Donald Trump admirer" versus "human rights defender." The article details the figures to the hundredth (43.74% to 40.91%), gives the floor to Pacto Histórico activist Gloria Daza, who had come to Cepeda's HQ — "Sowing doubt about electoral results is not a good strategy" — and notes that the head of the electoral observation mission reports a day that "proceeded with normality" despite incidents in Catatumbo and Caquetá.

RFI and France 24 emphasize the security deployment: 408,000 police and soldiers deployed for 41.4 million voters, 1,500 international observers from 26 organizations including the OAS, the EU and the Carter Center. France 24 quotes directly the radical right candidate, who described the vote Sunday night as "the most important battle in the history of the Republic." Le Monde recalls that De la Espriella proposes to "bomb drug traffickers' camps," reduce state size by 40%, and build ten megaprisons — a program the French press notes blends Bukele, Milei and Trump.

20 Minutes synthesizes with a striking formula: "Gandhi admirer vs Trump fan." The French press is alone in parallel-ing Cepeda with Gandhi — a detail that says much about the at least implicit French stance. Ouest-France dispatched a reporter who described the context: "the left capitalizes on its social measures to stay in power," minimum-wage increases, social programs in one of the world's most unequal countries. Paris's implicit verdict: the Colombian sequence validates the French thesis of an advancing Trumpist international, and the Élysée — silent Sunday night — observes attentively because the same dynamic manifests itself at its own doors.