French election

French voters began casting their ballots on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election in which far-right leader Marine Le Pen is mounting a ...

Among the twelve candidates are three politicians from the far-right, four on the far-left, one environmental activist and a former shepherd.

The left's Socialist Party is also represented by a female candidate, On the right, for the first time, France's conservative Republican party will be represented by a female candidate, Valerie Pecresse. Macron is closely followed by Marine Le Pen (23%), the leader of France's historic far-right party Le Rassemblement National.

EMMANUEL MACRON will be hoping to secure a second term in office when the French presidential election kicks off on Sunday. But who are the bookmakers ...

In the run-up to France’s latest presidential election, pollsters have reported that many of Emmanuel Macron’s rivals have been able to narrow the distance between themselves and the incumbent president. The latest polls suggest that Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen are likely to face off in a second-round run-off vote - as was the case in 2017. The French public will cast their initial ballots on Sunday with the election likely to drag on to a second-round run-off vote.

Opinion polls published before a campaign blackout had Mr Macron coming out on top - but showed the far-right leader of National Rally was closing the gap.

Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Ms Le Pen has been honing in on the day-to-day grievances of average voters. The incumbent centrist president entered late into the campaign, with only one major rally that even his supporters found underwhelming. - Ban on wearing Muslim headscarves in all public spaces, a ban on building big mosques and on foreign financing of the Muslim faith - Keep the minimum retirement age at 62 and raise the minimum pension - Progressively raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and boost the minimum monthly pension

Follow the latest updates as polls predict a tight first round finish between the president, Emmanuel Macron, and Marine Le Pen, from the far-right National ...

But there will be no certainty about what it all means until the first projections when polls close at 8pm - these are not, by the way, exit polls, but estimations based on actual votes cast in a representative selection of polling stations nationwide. Exactly a month ago, on 10 March, Emmanuel Macron - buoyed by a rally-round-the-flag effect following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - stood at about 30% and Marine Le Pen at about 18%, according to the Guardian’s election tracker. It’s hard to say at this stage who this might benefit. On the other hand, some of the detail in those midday turnout figures could be ringing a few alarm bells in the president’s camp: abstention looks to be higher in the Paris region, which was heavily pro-Macron in the last elections in 2017, whereas turnout in some areas that voted predminantly for Le Pen five years ago seems to be significantly higher. A low turnout is widely believed to be bad news for the far-right leader, because it could be a sign that her supporters, who often fail to show up on voting day in the kind of numbers that the polls predicted, may again be staying away. On average, the latest polls put the two on 26% and 23% respectively, a difference that is equivalent to many polling organisations’ margin of error.

President Emmanuel Macron is expected to finish first, and may again face the far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round. After a muted campaign, ...

While all eyes have been focused on the swift rise of Ms. Le Pen, the far-right candidate, Mr. Mélenchon, 70, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, has witnessed a comeback in recent weeks. All with a view, Mr. Macron said, “to securing a cease-fire and then the total withdrawal of troops.” “The way he advertised himself in 2017 has very little to do with what has been done,” he added. Mr. Zelensky, to judge by a recent interview in The Economist, has been underwhelmed. He has pledged to stop immigration, even rejecting refugees from the war in Ukraine, and also proposed expelling immigrants as part of “remigration.” He failed to reposition himself, especially against his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, and at under 10 percent in most polls, he is unlikely to make it past the first round on Sunday. The first months of the campaign were marked by polarized rhetoric on immigration and security — a characteristic that many residents in Melun deplored. France’s presidents — who have formidable powers at their disposal and set much of the country’s agenda — are elected directly by the people to five-year terms in a two-round voting system. At a time when revived nationalism had produced Brexit and the Trump presidency, he bet on a strong commitment to the European Union — and swept aside his opponents with an incisive panache. “I’m in favor of selective immigration, instead of the current situation where we have immigrants who are seeking to take advantage of the French system,” said Karl, who works in real estate. Many French people feel left out from the economic growth that Mr. Macron has delivered and are anxious about the violence in their neighborhoods. President Biden has repeatedly said the world is at an “inflection point” in the confrontation between autocracy and democracy.

European investors shaken by the rising odds of a far-right victory in France's presidential elections are on tenterhooks for the first-round results due later Sunday. The euro, French stocks and even Italian bonds are among assets that have come under ...

Le Pen Risk Keeps Markets on Watch For French Election Results · Euro will be first to react to preliminary results on Sunday · Narrowing polls have pressured ...

Paris, Apr 10 (EFE).- French voters were casting their ballots on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election pitting incumbent president Emmanuel ...

In 2017, Macron beat Le Pen by three points. In a projected second round, polls give Macron a second term in office, but with just a two or three-point advantage over Le Pen, compared to five years ago when he won 66 percent of the vote to Le Pen’s 34. Macron and Le Pen are widely expected to head to a runoff, since no French presidential candidate has won in the first round under the current system.

Voters cast ballots across France on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election where far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is posing an unexpected ...

Last polls still had Macron leading the first round and winning a runoff. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Assuming that Macron and Le Pen go through, the president faces a problem: many left-wing voters have told pollsters that, unlike in 2017, they would not cast a ballot for Macron in the runoff purely to keep Le Pen out of power. "I think he's the only one today who has the courage ... to build the France of tomorrow," Armelle Savidan, a 47-year-old human resources manager, said after casting her ballot for Macron in Paris.