Please regularly refresh this page for latest reports, which appear top of page. A brief guide to the elections and the candidates can be found at the bottom of this page. All times local (CET).
-------------------------
UPDATE Monday April 24th:
The French interior ministry has published the final official scores of the candidates as follows:
Emmanuel Macron (En Marche!): 23.75%
Marine Le Pen (Front National) : 21.53%
François Fillon (Les Républicains): 19.91%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (La France insoumise): 19.64%
Benoît Hamon (Socialist Party): 6,35%
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (Debout la France): 4,75%
Jean Lassalle (Résistons) : 1.22%
Philippe Poutou (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste): 1.10%
François Asselineau (Union populaire républicaine): 0.92%
Nathalie Arthaud (Lutte ouvrière): 0.65%
Jacques Cheminade (Solidarité et progrès): 0.18%
-------------------------
03.30am: We sign off tonight with a look at the front pages of some of France's regional papers.
For the south-west France regional daily Sud-Ouest, "The New Order" has arrived:
For the north-east daily L'Union, an uninspired headline announced "The Duel":
Enlargement : Illustration 2
While for the northern Channel coast daily Nord Littoral, which covers the towns of Calais and Dunkirk where the problems surrounding the creation of makeshift camps of migrants hoping to make clandestine crossings to Britain has prompted local anti-migrant sentiment, stoked notably by the far-right, the headline announces Le Pen's local high scores with "Marine submersion in Calais":
03.15am: So what is to come now? With the official result of all votes counted still to come, the order of candidates will not change from that indicated at 01.30am, only the precise percentage of their share of the vote will move up or down by a slight margin. We will bring you the final score on Monday.
What is certain is that France’s next president will be either centrist Emanuel Macron or far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, to be decided when voters go to the polls for the second round election on May 7th. Most political observers, and also opinion poll surveys (who in the end were not ridiculed tonight with their predictions for the first round), forecast a clear win for Macron who, on top of his own supporters, will benefit from the rejection of the far-right by the electorate of both the mainstream Left and Right. But while the Champagne bottles have been uncorked in parts of Paris and Brussels, believing pro-EU Macron will easily beat Le Pen, there remains a doubt.
Hardliners on the Left and the Right have refused to advise their supporters to back Macron, including defeated radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who garnered more than 19% of the vote tonight. Macron is opposed by many leftwingers who regard him as a Trojan Horse of the Right. Just what will be the reaction of the bitterly disappointed electorate of Mélanchon and that of the sorely-defeated Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon (who has publicly called for an anti-Le Pen vote next month)? Meanwhile, swallowing the Macron “pill” will be no easier for some of the hard-core supporters of defeated conservative candidate François Fillon, despite his advice to vote Macron against Le Pen in the second round.
The mathematics indicate that Macron will win, but that also may further discourage those disappointed tonight from voting on May 7th, sure in the knowledge that Macron would win anyway, thanks to others but not to them. A demobilisation of the electorate could let Le Pen in through the back door, and the smugness expressed tonight of those outside of France, from the money markets to the corridors of the EU, largely ignorant of the profound frustrations inside the country and last year so mislead about Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump, sound a dark alarm.
The odds however are on Macron winning. But whether it’s he or Le Pen, the crucial election is the legislative election in June to elect Members of Parliament (MPs). Macron is head of a movement that was born last year and has no parliamentary base. Le Pen’s Front National party currently has just two MPs. Either candidate must govern with a parliamentary majority, without which a president is largely impotent. In the case of Macron, he would appear bound, if he wins, to finding a coalition of Right and Left whatever the number of successful candidates his movement fields, while Le Pen is most unlikely to reach a ruling coalition - let alone returning a majority of MPs. The uncertainty in French politics is set to climb further.
But perhaps the most significant event on Sunday is the collapse of the mainstream parties, the Socialist Party, but also the conservative Les Républicains. For the latter, it is the first time a conservative candidate has not been present in a second-round presidential vote, while the socialists recorded a historically low score. Both now face possibly fatal internal divisions. For the Socialist Party, the failure of its rightwing to loyally support Benoît Hamon, its leftist nominee, promises a major settling of scores that may well end in its implosion, especially because many of its old guard have jumped ship for Macron. The conservative Les Républicains party, which just five months ago was assured of winning the election, is now bitterly divided over the support it officially leant to their candidate François Fillon whose scandal-engulfed campaign has ended in tatters. The harsh recriminations voiced tonight in both camps reveal the panic that has set in among MPs uncertain of their future in June’s legislative elections.
02.05 am: The result tonight is of course a national one, but behind it is a vastly different picture in terms of who came where by region.
A look at the map of results interestingly shows that Emmanuel Macron came broadly first in a large swathe of western France, from north to south and westwards from the centre. Marine Le Pen came first in a similar swathe, north to south and east from the centre, including most of the Mediterranean and outlying regions, from east to west. Both also won in pockets of these opposing regions.
Conservative candidate François Fillon came top in a wide area around his north-west France political fiefdom in the Sarthe département (county), in south-central and east-central France. Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon arrived first in Dordogne, south-west France and the south-west département of Ariège, bordering the Pyrenees.
In the “Great East” region of north east France, which runs from the Ardennes to the Marne to the Vosges, Marine Le Pen scored more than 30% in five of its ten départements. Emmanuel Macron emerged with an average of almost 30% across the traditionally Left-voting region of Brittany, in north-west France.
01.30am: The French interior ministry has released an update of what are still partial figures as the count of votes continues. The scores are now clearly modified by the counting in large towns and cities where the polling booths closed at 8pm and which are therefore the last to come in (along with votes from expatriates).
At 00.14am the official figures showed:
Emmanuel Macron in the lead, with a 23.82% share of votes cast (and which number 8,363,304)
Marine Le Pen at 21.57 % (7,571,933)
François Fillon at 19.95 % (7, 005,174)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 19.50% (6,846,879)
Benoît Hamon at 6.32% (2,216,980)
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan at 4.76% (1,669,787)
Jean Lassalle at 1,22% (429.626)
Philippe Poutou at 1.1% (386.612)
François Asselineau at 0.92% (322,532)
Nathalie Arthaud at 0.65% (228,614)
Jacques Cheminade at 0.18% (63,978)
These partial figures also shwo an abstention rate of 21.74%, with the number of officially-recognised blank votes at 644,119, and the number of disqualified votes (these include deliberately nullified votes like that which included a 50-euro note for François Fillon's wife Penelope - see report timed at 10.40pm - and also those that are perhaps accidentally rendered unintelligible) at 286,638.
01.00 am: Emmanuel Macron left his supporters in Paris tonight for a celebratory dinner at the brasserie La Rotonde, in the Montparnasse quarter, prompting some Macron critics, taking to the social media, to compare the event with the infamous dinner hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy after his election in 2007 (Macron, let's remember, is not yet elected) at the exclusive Fouquet's restaurant on the avenue Champs-Elysées. Here's the menu (prices in euros) from La Rotonde, courtesy of the website of France Info radio:
Enlargement : Illustration 4
00.10am: We are taking a short pause now. We'll be back with more news, together with analysis on the results, at 1am.
11.57pm: Emmanuel Macron has received messages of congratulations from the spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker. Meanwhile, the euro has "surged", according to The Financial Times on the international moneymarkets with the news of Macron's qualification for the second round.
11.54pm: Far-left candidate Philippe Poutou tonight refused to lend his support to Macron in the second round. Poutou's far-left rival Nathalie Arthaud has said she will place a blank vote on May 7th.
11.50pm: What might be termed the “Christian Right” in France seems to have come out against urging anyone to vote for Emmanuel Macron, even if its supporters do not view Marine Le Pen any more favourably. Jean-Frédéric Poisson, who is president of the Christian Democrat party the Parti Chrétien-Démocrate (PCD), said in a statement that a “choice between a seized-up France of Marine Le Pen and a deregulated France of Emmanuel Macron is no choice at all”. For him, the pair are “two equal rejections of the French model and French tradition”. Poisson, who stood in the Right's primary election won by François Fillon last autumn, said either of them being in the Elysée was a “catastrophic scenario”.
11.40pm: Conservative Euro MP and former justice minister Rachida Dati joined in the growing Fillon-bashing that is emerging on the Right after Fillon's elimination in the first round. The result is a “moral, historic defeat for the Right, for our party, for our political family,” she told television channel France 2. “The French Right exists, the French Left exists, it's simply that today those who represent these two leanings [have] conducted themselves badly,” she said. “Particularly in campaigning methods,” she added, in a none-too-veiled sideswipe at that of Fillon.
11.35pm: On leaving his campaign headquarters tonight in Paris, radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon appeared to informally announce he was planning, at least in the immediate future, to step back from his role as leader of his 'France unbowed' movement. As he passed a group of supporters outside a nearby bar, he called out: "It's for you to pick up the torch from where I left it."
11.30pm: A rightwing Catholic “traditional family” movement which supported François Fillon's campaign said they would not advise supporters who they should vote for in the second round. “We'll give each person their freedom of conscience,” said Christophe Billan, president of Sens Commun ('Common Sense') a movement which emerged from the 2013 protests against the introduction of a law allowing same-sex marriage. “It's in our DNA at Sens Commun, we don't rope people in. I repeat, the two options in front of us seem to me to be harmful. On one side the state regime of Marine Le Pen, on the other the unrealistic deconstruction of Emmanuel Macron.”
11.25pm: The interior ministry has announced that 33 million votes have now been counted, still a partial amount, and the scores of the two lead candidates so far are 23.11% of votes cast for Emmanuel Macron, and 23.08% for Marine Le Pen.
11.20pm: Meanwhile, amongst the mainstream Right and centre-right there was almost unanimity that voters should now come together to stop Marine Le Pen becoming president even if Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative senators in the French Senate and a close Fillon ally, said he preferred to wait until his “political family” made a formal decision at a party committee meeting on Monday morning. One exception was former defence minister Charles Millon of the centre-right UDF party who campaigned for François Fillon. “Emmanuel Macron can only be a substitute. That's why François Fillon's voters are faced with an impossible decision,” he said. Another rare exception was the maverick former minister Christine Boutin, founder of France's Christian Democrat party, the Parti chrétien-démocrate, and aligned to the rightwing traditionalist Catholic movement, who said she would “never give Emmmanuel Macron my vote”. She said: “I call for a realignment of the Right to defend our civilisation against globalisation.”
11.15 pm: Macron continued: "I have heard your aspirations for a true changeover, for democratic vitality, for economic and ecological transition […] I will work during the coming 15 days so that we can together rally [the electorate] as widely as possible […] The challenge is to open a new page in our political life, and to act so that each one, with justice and vitality, can find their place, in France and in Europe. That is or challenge. Which is why I want, as of now, to build a government majority, made up of new faces and new talent. Each one can have their place.”
"My dear fellow citizens, you have done it, you have carried us. You have shown that there was no inevitability in our country. You are this renewal.”
11pm: Emmanuel Macron triumphantly took to the podium at his campaign headquarters in Paris this evening, accompanied by his wife Brigitte (who is also his former schoolteacher), the two bearing broad smiles. “The people of France have today expressed themselves,” he told a jubilant crowd of supporters, cheering and waving French flags. “While our country is going through a moment never before seen in its history, marked by terrorism, social suffering, the ecological challenges, it took to the urns en masse. It decided to place me in the lead in these elections [...] I measure the honour and the responsibility that is thus mine.”
He added, “I want to salute the other candidates present in the first round” and named nine of them, to applause from the crowd, but omitting to mention Marine Le Pen.
10.45pm: The knives were getting sharpened on the Right as the failure of François Fillon to make to through to the second round sank in. Former budget minister Éric Woerth, who had already indicated he would vote for Macron in the second round, said the Right's defeat was down to their candidate, not the conservative Les Républicains party itself. “I think that it isn't the Right that has lost, it's François Fillon who has lost,” he declared. “[Fillon] said so himself with bravery and clarity, it's the scandals which have compromised this campaign. We obviously should have won this election. It's a disaster for the political family that I represent,” he said, though Woerth insisted its ideas were “very much alive”.
Woerth himself is no stranger to scandal (see here and here).
10.40pm: French TV journalist Julien Bellver has Tweeted an amusing anecdote from a polling station in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where one of the envelopes placed in the urn was found to contain just a 50-euro banknote upon which was written: “For Penelope”.
Penelope is François Fillon’s British-born wife who, like Fillon, has been placed under investigation in a judicial probe into their suspected fraud over her lucrative employment as her husband’s parliamentary secretary for work she allegedly never carried out – which tonight has cost him his campaign. See more here, here, and here.
10.30pm: Numerous Socialist Party figures have tonight called for a vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round, including veteran leftwinger and mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, who openly supported Hamon unlike the rightwing of the party, and foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. They were joined by former socialist government justice minister Christiane Taubira, who remains influential among the party’s Left.
There is little surprise in this given that Macron’s contest is now against the far-right, the arch enemy of the Left. But what is important is that many of those who are on the Left of the Socialist Party are now underwriting the centrist who was leant support by the rightwing of the party, openly or thinly disguised, and who deserted their own nominee Benoît Hamon who tonight denounced their “betrayals”. The split that has caused in the socialist camp now leaves the future of the party in doubt.
10.20pm: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for the moment given to be in fourth place behind François Fillon, has addressed his supporters, showing caution about the final result. "When the official results are made public, we will respect them," he said. "I don't what more to say or do at this hour. Each person knows in their conscience what is their duty."
His supporters are invited to take part in an online debate on his website to decide on an eventual common position on lending support, or not, to Emmanuel Macron in the second round.
10.15pm: On the Right, the recriminations are set to begin soon after a stunning defeat at an election which it expected to win after the record unpopularity of socialist François Hollande's presidency. Conservative Member of Parliament and long-time rival of François Fillon, Jean-François Copé, was quick to liken Fillon's defeat to that of Lionel Jospin, the socialist candidate whose failure to make the second round in April 2002 against far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen and the eventual winner Jacques Chirac still haunts the Left. “The Right has just experienced its April 21st,” declared Copé, referring to the date of Jospin's debacle.
“It was a contest that supposedly couldn't be lost and which has ended in a lamentable fiasco. The Right has been swept aside, like the Socialist Party, and we must all draw the lessons from it,” added Copé.
10.10pm: Rightwing sovereignist candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who is heading for around 5% of the vote and who arguably took some of the disenchanted conservative vote from scandal-hit François Fillon, said he would decide “in a few days” for whom he would vote in the second round. For him the lesson of the election, in which neither of the candidates from the main parties of the Left of Right have made it through to the second round, was clear. 'We're witnessing the deserved collapse of the parties who have governed us for years and who have done us so much harm.”
10.08pm: US economist and Nobel prizewinner Paul Krugman, who has been highly critical of European Union policies defended by Emmanuel Macron, took to Twitter this evening to say: “So it's apparently Le Pen - Macron, which in turn probably means Macron. If so, that's a disaster averted. Good. But ....”
10pm: The French interior ministry has announced the official result after the partial count of 20 million votes (the French electorate is 47 million, although far from all took part today, when it is estimated that 22% of registered voters abstained).
The interior ministry’s partial figures place Marine Le Pen in the lead with 24.3%, followed by Emmanuel Macron on 22.2%. In third place is François Fillon, with 19.6%, followed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon with 18.1%.
It should be noted that polling booths in Paris and other major cities around France - where Macron is likely to have garnered a larger percentage of the vote than in rural areas - were the last to close, at 8pm, and are not included in this partial count.
9.50pm: Emmanuel Macron is on his way to address his supporters at his HQ at the porte de Versailles in south-west Paris.
9.45pm: Marine Le Pen quickly set out her line of attack against the person she will confront in the second round after her “historic” score in the first round, pitting her economic nationalism against the policies of the former merchant banker Emmanuel Macron. “We've reached the first step. It won't have escaped a single French person that the system sought every means to stifle the great debate which should have taken place in this election. At last, this debate will take place,” she said from her headquarters in Hénin-Beaumont in the north of France. “The French people will seize this historic opportunity. The French people have the choice between complete deregulation and major change. It's time to free the French people. I'm the people's candidate. The survival of France is at stake,” she said.
9.34pm: There are reports of clashes with anti-riot police this evening at the Place de la Bastille in central Paris, where groups describing themselves a "anti-fascist" militants have attempted to set up barricades.
9.30pm: Alain Juppé, the mayor of Bordeaux (and a former prime minister) who was defeated by Fillon in the primary election to choose a conservative presidential candidate, praised his rival's efforts in the contest. But he quickly turned to the task facing Emmanueal Macron. “It falls to him to bring people together. I wait for him to detail his programme of reform.” The former prime minister then set out what he sees as the themes of this national coming together: a strong state, full employment, reinforcing social protection and restoring France's image in the world. Juppé called for “all French people of goodwill” to work towards those goals.
9.21pm: Education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, one of Benoît Hamon's camaign team, "solemly" called on French voters "to block Front National by voting massively for Emmanuel Macron" in the second round "without hesitation or soul-searching".
"Nothing should distract us from the only urgency there is, to beat the Front National," she added.
9.20pm: The Elysée Palace has said that President François Hollande will express himself on the elections "very clearly" before the second round on May 7th.
9.10pm: The defeated conservative candidate François Fillon quickly accepted full responsibility for his failure to make it through to the second round, and made it clear he would vote for Emmanuel Macron. Having been dogged for weeks by the “fake jobs” scandal concerning he and his wife Penelope, Fillon appears to be heading for third place in the first round, significantly behind Macron and Le Pen.
“Despite all my efforts, I didn't succeed in convincing you,” declared Fillon, accepting his defeat. “The obstacles in my way were too numerous. I take responsibility, this defeat is mine and mine alone to shoulder. I send a message of friendship to those who have supported me.” He added: “In the meantime we have to choose what's preferable for our country. I don't do so with pleasure. Abstention is not in my DNA, especially when extremism is knocking on the door of government. So I will vote in favour of Emmanuel Macron. I think that I should tell you that in all candour...My dream is that our children can live in a free country, free from the fear of decline. That was my ambition, my plan, that was my dream. The future of France is now in your hands,” he told voters. “The FN is known for its violence and intolerance, its programme would lead our country to bankruptcy and to chaos in Europe. Extremism can only bring unhappiness and division to our country.”
9.10pm: The Elysée Palace has announced that President François Hollande has called Emmanuel Macron to congratulate him. During the campmaign, Hollande had avoided lending support to his Socialist Party's candidate Benoît Hamon, one of a small group of his former ministers who led a leftwing revolt against Hollande's increasingly pro-business and austerity policies.
Hollande's former prime minister Manuel Valls, who was roundly defeated by Hamon in the socialist primaries in January, and who also refrained from lending support to his former rival - contrary to the rules he signed up to in the primary contest - tonight gave Macron his backing for the second round.
9pm: The Ipsos/Sopra Steria estimations at 8.45pm now give third place to the conservative François Fillon at 19.7%, with radical-left Jean-luc Mélenchon in fourth place at 19.2%
Emmanuel Macron is still leading on 23.7%, while second-placed Marine Le Pen has crept up slightly to 21.9%.
8.53pm: Former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was an ally of Alain Juppé, who lost out on the conservative presidential nomination to François Fillon, added his voice to those calling for the Right to back Macron in the second round. Describing Fillon's defeat in the first round as “very bad news” he said: “But today, faced with the situation that we're in, we must come together. We must come together behind Emmanuel Macron,” he told public broadcaster France 2.
8.46pm: Senior figures from the defeated François Fillon's Les Républicains were quick to call for a united front against Marine. Le Pen's Front National. Eric Woerth, former budget minister, said: "Our ideas haven't been beaten this evening. To stop the Front National, who would ruin our country, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron." Laurent Wauquiez, the conservative president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central south-east France, said on Twitter: "I want Les Républicains to adopt a common line for the second round: to not vote for Marine Le Pen."
In contrast, Marine Le Pen's niece and Front National MP Marion Maréchal-Le Pen attacked those on the Left and Right who swiftly threw their weight behind Macron. On TF1 television she said that the leader of En Marche! ('On the Move!) would simply “recycle the socialist bigwigs”. And singling out François Baroin, who is close to Fillon, and who has already called on the electorate to vote against the Front National, she said he was “choosing to save his arse”.
8.45pm: Speaking after the first estimations were made known, French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, a veteran figure of the Socialist Party, has called upon party supporters to vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round. It is now clear that the broad order of the results is final (although the percentage share of the vote is still likely to change slightly, notably to determine which of Fillon or Mélenchon, for the moment on level pegging, is third-placed).
8.35pm: Christian Estrosi, a leading figure in the conservative Les Républicains party has accepted its candidate François Fillon is eliminated. "It is a harsh defeat, all the more cruel in that we should have won," said Estrosi, who split with Fillon amid bitter party infighting over the latter's insistence to continue as candidate after becoming embroiled in a fake jobs scandal. "It is not our iodeas which were defeated [...] This election is over four rounds, we must set our sights on the legislative elections," he added, referring to the two-round parliamentary elections in June.
8.30pm: While the estimated results are just that, and not official and still liable to change in percentage points, most of the French parties are clearly decided that the order of winners is established, with Emmanuel macron and Marine Le Pen now through to the second round knockout vote in two weeks time.
8.25pm: "I failed to thwart the disaster that has been announced for the past several months. I entirely accept the responsibility without pointing the finger at the five-yaer presidency [of François Hollande] and the betrayals," said Hamon in his address to supporters in Paris, referring to the policies of the outgoing socialist government which the leftwinger vehemently opposed, and also to the calls of Hollande allies in the Socialist Party to vote for Emmanuel Macron. "This failure is a profound bruising, I take measure of this historic and legitimate punishment that has been addressed to the Socialist Party. The elimination of the Left by the far-right seals a moral defeat."
8.20pm: The early estimates show following behind Hamon in fifth place are: Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (5%), Jean Lassalle (1.5%), Philippe Poutou (1.2%), François Asselineau (0.8%), Nathalie Arthaud (0.7%) et Jacques Cheminade (0.2%).
8.10pm: Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon delivers a short speech recognising his defeat, a historically low score for the socialists.
8.10pm: Radical-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the conservative François Fillon are estimated to be in joint third position with 19.5%. Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon is creditied with fifth place at 6.5%.
8pm: Pollsters Ipsos/Sopra Steria, conducting exit polls for public broadcasters France Télévisions and Radio France, give the first estimated score, with Emmanuel Macron tipped as the winner with 23.7%, followed by far-right candidate Marine Le Pen on 21.7%
6pm: No exit polls can be published in France before voting ends in all areas at 8pm, but Belgian media report they indicate results that are too tight to call. French media are also repeatedly warning that early results are to be taken with considerable precaution.
5.30pm: Turnout at midday was estimated at 28.54%, slightly higher than first-round voting in the last elections in 2012 (28.29%), and by 5pm turnout was estimated at 69.42%, down slightly on 2012 (70.59%).
5pm: An estimation of the abstention rate by pollsters Ipsos/Sopra Steria, with three hours left before all polling stations close, was 22%, higher than any presidential election first round since 1969 except for 2002, when it reached 28.4%. Abstentions in the first round of voting in the last presidential election, in 2012, were 20.52%.
A brief guide to the election
How it works:
The French presidential elections are held in two rounds, on Sunday April 23rd and Sunday May 7th. The two top-scoring candidates in the first round, out of a total of 11, move on to the knockout second round, when the one with the highest score is elected as France’s new president for a five-year term.
The French electorate is made up of 47 million, the majority in mainland France but partly also in France’s overseas territories (which began voting on Saturday).
Polling booths are open until 8pm in France’s major cities, while others close at 7pm.
What follows:
Legislative elections will follow on June 11th and 18th to decide the makeup of the new French parliament’s 577 seats.
The presidential election candidates:
The 11 candidates in the presidential elections are: Nathalie Arthaud (far-left Lutte Ouvrière party); François Asselineau (hard-right sovereignist, UPR party); Jacques Cheminade (maverick rightwing independent): Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (rightwing sovereignist, La France Debout party ); François Fillon(conservative, Les Républicains party); Benoît Hamon (Socialist Party); Jean Lassalle (maverick centre-right independent); Marine Le Pen (far-right Front National party); Emmanuel Macron (maverick centrist, En Marche! movement); Jean-Luc Mélenchon (radical-left, La France insoumise movement); Philippe Poutou (far-left NPA party).
A short outline of what the frontrunners stand for:
Centrist Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker who became economy minister in the outgoing socialist government until he stepped down to launch his presidential bid as head of the independent movement En Marche! (On the move!), is firmly pro-European and pro-euro who wants to introduce pro-business liberal economic reforms, tempered by a progressive approach to some social issues. At 39 the youngest of any of the candidates, he promises to shake up France’s staid traditional political scene, claiming a ‘new way’ that he says is neither Left nor Right.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen promises to lock down immigration, to call a referendum on France’s exit from the European Union, a crackdown on Islamist movements and the introduction of national preference giving priority to French nationals over others in areas such as employment, public housing and social benefits. Her campaigning rhetoric was marked by thinly veiled anti-Muslim sentiment, and open rejection of offering haven to refugees. Recently meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, she wants closer ties with Moscow.
Radical-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a former Socialist Party minister who broke away from the party in 2008 to lead a leftist coalition with the communist party. In these elections, he stands as leader of the movement La France insoumise (Unbowed France) he created, promising to replace the current constitution of the Fifth Republic, established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, with a new Sixth Republic based on greater parliamentary powers and the use of referenda, and also to raise the minimum wage, reduce the working week, and to tax high earnings at 90%. An opponent of austerity policies, he wants to renegotiate France’s terms of membership with the EU, and says he will call a referendum on France’s membership of the EU if he fails in those negotiations.
Conservative candidate François Fillon, a former prime minister under Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, representing the mainstream opposition party Les Républicains, wants to slash public spending, promising to reduce the public sector payroll by 500,000 jobs over a five-year presidency. A self-avowed admirer of the late former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Fillon wants to tackle the power of trades unions, significantly reduce business taxes and charges, and also tax rates for the wealthy, while raising the retirement age and increase working hours by ending the 35-hour week. Fillon’s electoral base includes hardline conservative Catholics, notably from the still active movement that opposed the same-sex marriage laws and rights of gay couples to adoption introduced by the outgoing socialist government.
Opinion poll forecasts:
The opinion polls over the last weeks of campaigning all give independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen as leading voting intentions, at around 23% and 22.5% respectively. They are closely followed by radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and François Fillon, representing the principal conservative opposition party Les Républicains, both hovering at between 18%-19%, although the pair appeared to be gaining ground in the final days of campaigning.