The president and candidate for re-election, Emmanuel Macron, and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will dispute the presidency of France in the second round on April 24, according to the results of various exit polls from the elections this Sunday. .
Macron was the most voted candidate, with 28.5%, and had an advantage of more than four percentage points over the leader of the National Association, who obtained 24.2% of the votes, according to the exit poll published by the Bfmtv news network.
In third place was left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with 20.2%, while the remaining nine candidates are below 10 percentage points.
Specifically, the far-right journalist Éric Zemmour had 7.1%, the conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse 5.1%, the environmentalist Yannick Jadot 4.4%, the independent Jean Lassalle 3%, the communist Fabien Roussel 2.4% , the socialist Anne Hidalgo 1.9%, the Gaullist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 1.8% and the anti-capitalists Philippe Poutou and Nathalie Arthaud 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively, according to said survey.
The French elected their future president this Sunday, on a day marked by low voter turnout: until 5:00 p.m., only 65% of the voter had voted. According to the French Ministry of the Interior, in 2017, also until 5:00 p.m., the participation rate was 69.42% in metropolitan France and in 2002 the rate was 58.45%.
The launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24 overshadowed the election campaign, but the effect on energy prices brought it back to the fore, mainly because of concerns about purchasing power.
The start of the war prompted Macron, but in the final stretch of the campaign his main rival, Le Penprogressed in the polls, until close to victory against Macron if both go to the ballot on April 24.
At the international level, compared to Macron and his mediation efforts between Ukraine and RussiaLe Pen proposes, among other things, to abandon the integrated command of NATO, the body of the Atlantic Alliance that sets military strategy.
That is why the result will be closely followed in the world, since a possible victory of the extreme right candidate could deal a new setback to the European Union (EU) and to the international alliances of this economic and nuclear power.
Elections in France ??
President Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) and his wife Brigitte voted in the first round to elect president
? AFPhttps://t.co/gyfEirpT1N pic.twitter.com/nAs37Ij7aL
—Telam Agency (@TelamAgency) April 10, 2022
Macron voted from the northern city of Touquet, in the same department of Pas-de-Calais where a couple of hours earlier his rival Le Pen cast his vote, in the town of Henin-Beaumont, the French news agency AFP reported.
