It’s Le Pen v Macron
CENTRIST, 39, FAVOURITE TO BE NEXT FRENCH PRESIDENT
CENTRIST Emmanuel Macron will face far right leader Marine le Pen in a head-to-head battle for the French presidency as the country’s voters abandoned the orthodox political establishment.
Mr Macron, who quit current president Francois Hollande’s Socialists only last year to launch a new party, led the way with 23.7% of the firstround vote, according to an exit poll by Ipsos and Sopra Steria.
He led his Front National challenger Ms Le Pen (21.7%) by 2%, with scandal-plagued Gaullist Francois Fillon and far-left challenger JeanLuc Melenchon tied in third on 19.5%.
Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon trailed in a distant fifth with just 6.2%.
The risk of a victory by Ms Le Pen
promptedincludingprime to urge minister supportersMr centre-rightFillon Bernard and to Cazeneuvepoliticiansback Socialist Mr Macron in the second round of voting on May 7.
Bookmakers made Mr Macron the odds-on favourite to win the run-off, with both Ladbrokes and Coral offering 1-6, with Ms Le Pen at 4-1 and 7-2 respectively.
Pro-European Mr Macron was the Socialist finance minister until the autumn, when he quit to set up the En Marche movement, which he defines as centrist, and which has attracted support from left, centre and right.
The anti-EU Ms Le Pen’s campaign majored on jobs, security and the threat from Islamic extremism.
It also saw her deny French state complicity rounding up Jews for the Nazis in the Second World War, but she from US President Donald Trump.Speakingalso pickedat the up White muted House plaudits after a terrorist attack on Paris last week left a policeman dead, Mr Trump said she was “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France”. The country is going to the polls to elect the successor to Mr Hollande, who is not running after serving a single term in office. Earlier, thousands of French expatriates had queued for hours at polling stations in London to cast their votes.
There were already long queues around the block at the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle, near the Natural History Museum in Kensington, London, before the polling stations opened at 8am.
Polling stations were open in cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh, with 70 across the UK.