The victory for pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is now expected to beat right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote next month, sent the pan-European STOXX 50 index up 3 percent, France's CAC40 nearly 4 percent and bank stocks more than 6 percent.
For far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, the Kremlin said it respected the first round results, denying it supported the far-right candidate and saying it hopes to have good relations with France.
The May 7 runoff is to be between the populist Marine Le Pen and former French economics minister Emmanuel Macron, and politicians on the moderate left and right immediately urged voters to block Le Pen's path to power.
Under France's Fifth Republic, the president is the head of state, very much like a monarch in other countries, a role described by founder Charles De Gaulle as being above party politics - something Le Pen may have had in mind in her Monday night statement.
French National Front (FN) political party candidate for French 2017 presidential election, speaks with employees as she visits the meat pavilion at the Rungis worldwide food market, near Paris, during her campaign, France, April 25, 2017.
Later on Monday, Le Pen said she would leave her post as president of the National Front, but did not indicate for how long.
"There is no consensus in the two key political parties on all these issues", Mr Macron has said, describing the traditional spectrum as "irrelevant".
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Macron collected 8.66 million votes, or 24.01%, while Le Pen garnered 7.68 million votes, or 21.30%, according to the official final count published by the Interior Ministry. "I am the presidential candidate". "The French election is a major factor but it is just the first round, and the markets have shown that they are not exactly a stronghold of wisdom when it comes to future developments, as we saw with Trump, and with Brexit", Oliver Roth a trader at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange said.
Both centre-right and centre-left fell in behind Mr Macron, whose optimistic vision of a tolerant France and a united Europe with open borders is a stark contrast to Ms Le Pen's darker, inward-looking "French-first" platform, which calls for closed borders, tougher security, less immigration and dropping the euro to return to the French franc.
Not only have all the mainstream parties joined forces to thwart her ascent, a tactic they used in 2002 to successfully shunt her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Both Macron and Le Pen seemed to quarrel over who is the best patriot to move the economically troubled nation forward.
Le Pen, conversely, represents an extremist approach that would likely exacerbate France's economic malaise and diminish it internationally.
He still supports her candidacy in the presidential runoff.
While a financial scandal derailed the presidential bid of French conservative Francois Fillon, Le Pen, who is staunchly anti-EU, has so far survived the allegations unscathed. The oligarchy has already installed Emmanuel Macron in the president's seat.
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