Macron favourite as France votes for new president, turnout low
PARIS/BRUSSELS: French voters were choosing on Sunday between a young, pro-European Union centrist and a eurosceptic, anti-immigration far-rightist for their next president, with official figures and estimates indicating a low turnout.
Opinion polls predicted that the 39-year-old former economy minister Emmanuel Macron would win the five-year presidency, seeing off the National Front’s Marine Le Pen after an election campaign full of scandal and upsets.
Voting was not due to end until 8pm (1800 GMT), but Belgian me- dia published what they said were surveys taken on Sunday by four unnamed pollsters among people who had voted or intended to vote.
The Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said the surveys put Macron’s share of the vote at between 62 and 67 per cent. The information could not be verified by Reuters.
Pollsters are not allowed to publish election-day surveys in France before voting closes.
But the reported surveys were broadly in line with the last opinion polls on Friday, and pre-election surveys proved accurate for the tight first round between 11 candidates last month.
By midday, both candidates had voted, he in Le Touquet on the north coast, and she in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont.
A victory for Macron, who wants to deregulate the economy and deepen EU integration, would contrast with recent nativist, anti-globalisation voting outcomes such as those that will see Britain quit the EU and made Donald Trump U.S. president.
Should an upset occur and Le Pen win, the very future of the EU could be on the line, given her desire to close borders, dump the euro currency, and tear up trade treaties. But even in defeat, the 48-year-old’s vote is likely to be about twice what her party scored the last time it reached the presidential second round in 2002, demonstrating the scale of voter disaffection with mainstream politics in France.
After a campaign in which favourites dropped out of the race one after the other, this has put her closer to elected power than the far right has been in France since World War II.