Paris [France], April 11 (ANI/Sputnik): French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen garnered 27.96% of the vote in the first round of the election on Sunday, interim official results published by the Interior Ministry showed.
She was followed by incumbent Emmanuel Macron on 26.39%, with hard-left contender Jean-Luc Melenchon far behind on 18.26% and far-right Eric Zemmour on 6.66%, with 45% of the ballots counted.
President Emmanuel Macron thanked the leftist and conservative camps for backing his reelection bid after the first round of voting showed him tied with right-winger Marine Le Pen. “I thank [Socialist] Anne Hidalgo, [conservative] Valerie Pecresse, and [Communist] Fabien Roussel for lending me their support tonight,” he said in a post-vote speech.
The first official results put Macron in second place with 26.67%. With 50% of the ballots counted, Le Pen is leading the race with 27.53% of the vote. Le Pen, who has been backed by right-wing Eric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, said she would be the president of all the French if she won the runoff on April 24. (ANI/Sputnik)
Macron ahead in first round of presidential election with over 27 pc: Interior Ministry
Paris [France], April 11 (ANI/Sputnik): France’s Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron maintains his lead in the first round of the presidential election after over 95 per cent of the ballots were processed, according to interim results published by the Interior Ministry. Macron currently has 27.41 per cent of the votes, while far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is second with 24.03 per cent. Jean-Luc Melenchon is third with 21.57 per cent, and Eric Zemmour is fourth with 6.97 per cent.
The second round of the presidential election will be held in France on April 24. Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron thanked the leftist and conservative camps for backing his reelection bid after the first round of voting showed him tied with right-winger Marine Le Pen.
“I thank [Socialist] Anne Hidalgo, [conservative] Valerie Pecresse, and [Communist] Fabien Roussel for lending me their support tonight,” he said in a post-vote speech. The first official results put Macron in second place with 26.67%. With 50% of the ballots counted, Le Pen is leading the race with 27.53% of the vote.
Le Pen, who has been backed by right-wing Eric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, said she would be the president of all the French if she won the runoff on April 24.
Voting for French Presidential election underway in Puducherry
Puducherry [India], April 10 (ANI): The voting for the first round of the French Presidential elections is underway in the Union Territory of Puducherry with over 4,000 French citizens residing in the former colony expected to exercise their franchise.
4,564 French citizens residing in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry can cast their vote in favour of one of the 12 candidates running for the office in the first round.
The voting is taking place from 8 am to 7 pm today (Sunday) at five locations across the Union Territory of Puducherry and one in Chennai. “The team of the consulate general is mobilised to ensure French citizens living in India can vote, so we have six polling stations, 1 Chennai, 4 in Pondicherry (Puducherry) and one in Karaikal (part of the Union Territory of Puducherry). We are expecting 4568 voters registered on our consular elections list and everything is going well so far,” said Lise Talbot Barre, Consulate General of France in Pondicherry (Puducherry) and Chennai.
The elections will elect the President of the French Republic for a five-year term. The primary contenders for the top job are incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
France offers its citizens abroad, who are over 18 years of age and have registered to be on the electoral list in the Consulate General of France to vote in person, in their country of residence, an opportunity to vote for the presidential elections, referendums, legislative elections, European elections and elections of the councilors of French citizens abroad.
The 2022 elections will be the 12th presidential election of the Fifth Republic of France and the eleventh by direct universal suffrage. If no candidate wins an absolute majority of votes cast in the first round, a run-off election will be held between the top two candidates. The Presidential elections will be followed by the legislative elections in June later this year.
The second round of this year’s presidential elections will be held on April 24. (ANI)
(ANI/Sputnik)
