It is in progress the vote in France for the election of a new presidentas the polls opened at 8 am French time and will close 12 hours later, while around 21.00 the first results of the exit polls will be released.
The French are asked to choose between a central president Emanuel Macron and far-right Marin Lepenafter a divisive election campaign that saw the French far right even closer to seizing power.
Macron goes to the polls with a reasonable lead in the polls over Le Penan advantage that consolidated the frenetic last days of his election campaign.
However, analysts have warned Macron, who came to power in 2017 at the age of 39 as the country’s youngest modern leader, can not take anything for granted, as participation is crucial to ensure his victory.
We must above all ensure that left-wing voters who supported other candidates in the first round on April 10 they will support the centrist former banker and prevent Lepen from gaining power.
About 48.7 million French people have the right to vote.
The first ballot in the election took place at noon on SaturdayParis time, by a 90-year-old man in the tiny island nation of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off the north coast of Canada.
Ballot boxes were then opened on the French islands in the Caribbean and South American territory of French Guiana, followed by lands in the Pacific and then in the Indian Ocean before the unification of the mainland.
Attendance is key
Macron himself has repeatedly made it clear that the complacency of the voters who stay at home accelerated the “shocks” of the polls in 2016 that led in Brexit in Britain and to election of Donald Trump in the United States.
After all, according to the French Agency, analysts say that abstention rates could reach 26% -28%although the 1969 record with 31.1% abstention is not expected to be surpassed.
THE far-left leader Jean-Luc Melansonwho finished in third place in the first round votecategorically refused to urge millions of his followers to support Macron.
Another factor is that elections take place in the midst of the Easter school holidays in much of France.
According to Martial Foucault, director of the CEVIPOF Center for Political Studies, The higher the abstention rate, the greater the gap between Macron and Le Pen, describing it as a “real danger” to the president.
Early indications of participation will be closely monitored by the overseas regions, where median incomes are lower than in mainland France and who generally supported Melanson in the first round.
A victory for Le Pen will shock the whole of Europe. Left-wing EU leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Solz, have called on the France to choose Macron over his opponent.
The stakes are huge, with him Long-term commitment to reform and tighter EU integrationwhile Lepen insists that the block must be modified to what opponents describe as “Frexit”.
In addition, Macron has opposed her plan to make the Muslim headscarf illegal in public, while they also clashed for Russiawith Macron seeking to present Lepen as unable to withstand the invasion of Ukraine due to a loan her party took from a Russian-Czech bank.
However, in the event of Le Pen’s victory, she would become the first far-right leader in modern France and the first woman president.
Instead, the French will vote for Macron, it will be the first French president to be re-elected in two decades after Jacques Chirac in 2002.
In any case, the polls show as favorite Macron giving him lead of about 10 percentage points, with the difference having decreased significantly compared to 2017.
Macron then won with 66%. The other far-right challenge in the second round was in 2002 when Chirac ousted her father Marin Le Pen Jean-Marie by more than 82% of the vote.
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