French polling stations opened at 8 a.m. Sunday morning for the second and final round of presidential elections. In the first round of voting, which took place on Sunday, April 10, current French President Emmanuel Macron (La République en Marche) and the nationalist-populist Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National) received the most votes – 27.8 and 23.1 percent respectively. . They thus advanced to the second round, leaving ten other candidates behind.
In the polls Macron, who now has one term as president, has a head start. Since the first round of elections, the percentage of voters who choose Le Pen has fallen slightly, from 47.5 to 45 percent. There has been little campaigning in recent months. Macron says he has only made a limited number of campaign visits due to time constraints due to the war in Ukraine. Le Pen has due to lack of money mainly local municipalities.
Turnout is expected to be lower than in the previous election – in 2017 74.7 percent of French people voted, this election will according to the latest polls be about 73.5 percent. Nearly half of French people said they were “not interested” in politics in February, according to a Paris Match poll. Four years ago, that percentage was still 30 percent. In the first round, turnout was 4 percent lower than in the first round in 2017, writes broadcaster France24.
The polls close at 8pm on Sunday evening. Then the first results are also expected.
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