France on edge as presidential vote begins

Election was already too close to call and now security and immigration may gain importance over jobs and economy

PARIS // France begins voting today in one of its most unpredictable presidential elections in decades.

In the most recent polls, about one quarter of voters were still undecided.

The race tightened in the final days, with any of the four candidates potentially reaching reach the run-off on May 7.

But the shooting on Paris’s Champs-Elysees on Thursday and a man brandishing a knife at Paris’s Gare du Nord station yesterday could well change the dialogue.

Surveys had shown that the French were more concerned about jobs and the economy than terrorism.

Analysts warned the incidents could perhaps hand an advantage to candidates seen as taking a hard line on security, such as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who called for France to take back control of its borders from the European Union and deport all foreigners on a terrorist watch list.

“If it were to benefit someone, that would clearly be Marine Le Pen who has dominated this issue throughout the campaign, or Francois Fillon,” said Adelaide Zulfikarpasic of BVA pollsters.

Ms Le Pen and centrist former banker Emmanuel Macron were already leading BVA’s polls carried out on Thursday and Friday.

Both were on 23 per cent with leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon and fighting it out for third place with 19.5 per cent and Mr Fillon on 19 per cent, respectively.

After this week’s incidents she moved quickly to present herself as the strongest defender against Islamic extremists.

“This war against us is ceaseless and merciless,” she said, accusing the Socialist government of a “cowardly” response to the threat. The killing of policeman Xavier Jugele by 39- year- old gunman Karim Cheurfi on the Champs-Elysees on Thursday was the latest in a string of terrorist attacks to have struck France since 2015.

Prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused Ms Le Pen of attempting to exploit the killing, “as she does after every tragedy”.

Mr Fillon, the 63-year-old former prime minister who has stressed his previous experience, promised an “iron-fisted” approach to Islamic terrorism, saying: “Some haven’t taken the full measure of the evil”. Mr Macron – a 39- year- old moderate who Mr Fillon portrayed as too inexperienced for the top job – said France was paying the price for intelligence service cuts made when Mr Fillion was prime minister between 2007 and 2012.

Describing the Champs-Elysees shooting as an attack on democracy, Mr Macron urged voters: “Do not give in to fear.” The Communist-backed Mr Melenchon, 65, was the only one of the four not to cancel his final campaign event on Friday.

He called for a “Europe of rebels”, during a rally in Paris with Pablo Iglesias, the head of Spain’s far-left Podemos party.

“Several Europes are possible, it doesn’t have to be just their Europe,” said Mr Melenchon, a Eurosceptic who pledged to renegotiate treaties with the bloc.

Whether security is an issue in polling choices, it was top of the agenda for French officials today, with about 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers deployed to protect voters around the country. Authorities in Paris offered additional guards for polling stations in the capital.

Voting had already begun yesterday in many of France’s overseas territories.