Polls Open in France’s Pivotal Presidential Election

If Le Pen or Melenchon win a spot in the summer’s runoff, it will be seen as a victory for the rising wave of populism reflected by the votes for Donald Trump and Brexit.

Turnout by noon was 28.54 per cent of the electorate, slightly up on the corresponding 2012 figure of 28.29 per cent.

Before polling was suspended by law on Friday, Bloomberg’s composite of French polls showed Macron on 24.5 percent support and Le Pen in second place with 22.5 percent.

But polls show the scandal-tainted Fillon, a former prime minister, and hard-left firebrand Melenchon also in with a fighting chance. The far-right Le Pen and the far-left Melenchon could pull France out of the bloc and its shared euro currency – a so-called “Frexit”.

In Montreal, thousands of resident French nationals have waited in lines that snaked at one point to eight blocks to cast their votes in France’s presidential election.

A terrorist attack Thursday that left a police officer dead on Paris’ storied Champs-Élysées boulevard seemed like it could help Le Pen. “Macron, I’m relieved because I think he’ll succeed in rallying quite a few people”, she added.

In the wake of the policeman’s killing on Thursday, 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers have been deployed around France to protect voters. Even so, all surveys during the campaign suggested that Le Pen would eventually lose to any rival in the second round.

With an eye to MS Le Pen’s avowedly France-first policies, HE told the crowd: “I want to be the president of patriots in the face of a threat from nationalists”.

The result will be as keenly watched around the world as in France to see whether the populist tide which delivered Brexit to the United Kingdom and Donald Trump to America is still at play. Voters overseas could also cast ballots in French embassies Saturday.

Alternatively, if neither candidate makes it past Sunday’s first round into the runoff, that’s a clear message that populist nationalism is receding.

The election is the first in the history of France’s 59-year-old Fifth Republic to take place under a state of emergency.

Security will also be a concern, as France has experienced a number of attacks by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Both Le Pen and the leftist Melenchon promise to completely alter France’s relationship with the European Union, driving comparisons with the UK’s Brexit.

France voted on Sunday in the first round of a bitterly fought presidential election that is crucial to the future of Europe and a closely-watched test of voters’ anger with the political establishment.

Bathed in sunshine, the French presidential candidates stepped out to cast their votes in one of the most unpredictable contests in decades.

Unpopular incumbent President Francois Hollande, who pledged a year ago not to stand for re-election, voted in his political fiefdom of Tulle in Correze, southwestern France.

The results set up a duel between a young candidate with no electoral experience and the woman who remade the image of a party tainted by racism and anti-Semitism.

Former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, launches his bid for the French presidency.

Fillon, the mainstream Republican candidate, was initially a frontrunner but his campaign stumbled thanks to a scandal over claims he paid his wife and children for work they did not do.

Incumbent President Francois Hollande decided not to stand because of his low poll numbers, and Benoit Hamon, the candidate for Hollande’s Socialist Party, trails way behind the four frontrunners.