Projections say Macron, Le Pen go through to runoff in French vote

Macron projected to get 24%, Le Pen to secure 22% of votes

PARIS: Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen are set to face each other in a May 7 runoff for the French presidency after coming first and second in Sunday's first round of voting, early projections indicated.

In a race that was too close to call up to the last minute, Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker and economy minister who founded his own party only a year ago, was projected to get 24 per cent by the pollster Harris and 23.7 per cent by Elabe.

Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU National Front, was given 22 per cent by both institutes.

Harris gave both conservative candidate Francois Fillon 20 per cent and far-left contender Jean-Luc Melenchon 20 per cent, which would mean their elimination from the race.

Fillon had consistently been polling third in surveys leading up to the election.



French senator and key Fillon supporter Roger Karoutchi told reporters: "The first indications are not good."

The result, if confirmed, will mean a face-off between politicians with radically contrasting economic visions for a country whose economy lags that of its neighbours and where a quarter of young people are unemployed.

Though Macron, 39, is a comparative political novice who has never held elected office, opinion polls in the run-up to the ballot have consistently seen him winning the final clash against the 48-year-old Le Pen easily.

That in turn reduces the prospect of an anti-establishment shock on the scale of Britain's vote last June to quit the EU and the election of Donald Trump as US president. Macron favours gradual deregulation measures that will be welcomed by global financial markets, while Le Pen wants to ditch the euro currency and possibly pull out of the EU.



Whatever the outcome on May 7, it will mean a redrawing of France's political landscape, which has been dominated for 60 years by mainstream groupings from the centre-left and centre-right, both of whose candidates faded.

The final outcome on May 7 will influence France's standing in Europe and the world as a nuclear-armed, veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and founding member of the organisation that transformed itself into the European Union.

French conservatives, Socialists back Macron

Senior French conservatives and Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon said on Sunday that they would back centrist Emmanuel Macron in a May 7 runoff against far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon told supporters his party had suffered an ‘historic blow’ from its voter base and called on voters to back Macron and reject Le Pen in ‘the strongest possible way’.

On the other side of the traditional political spectrum, former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a member of defeated candidate Francois Fillon's The Republicans party, said: "Without hesitation, as far as I'm concerned we've got to rally behind Emmanuel Macron."

Meanwhile, Conservative French presidential candidate Francois Fillon also urged voters to back centrist Emmanuel Macron, saying far-right leader Marine Le Pen would bankrupt France if elected.

"There is no other choice but to vote against the far right, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron," Fillon told supporters.