Alwaght- French run-off presidential election is underway with voters choosing between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen of the Front National amid reports of boycott by a large segment of voters.
Polling stations opened at 8 a.m, and will close between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. polling companies release usually reliable projections of the final result almost immediately afterward.
Regardless of who wins between Macron, the independent centrist, or Le Pen, the far-right candidate, the country will be deeply polarized.
According to recent polling by Elabe, Macron would take 65 per cent of the vote in a second-round run-off against Le Pen.
Meanwhile, an opinion poll suggests millions of people in France plan to boycott today’s election. According to polls from the Cevipof, up to 32 per cent of French people will not vote for either Ms Le Pen or the Centrist Emmanuel Macron, which would be the highest number ever. A boycott might be favorable to Le Pen.
They will “vote blanc”, which is a protest vote when people go to the polling station to vote but give in a blank ballot paper.
Activists have described the presidential election as a choice between “two devils: fascism and finance”.
According to an Ifop poll, which is based on 100 voters for each candidate, more than a third of people who voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan in the first round will abstain on Sunday’s crunch election.
Elsewhere, France’s presidential election is being held amid unprecedented security measures. The Interior Ministry has deployed 50,000 police officers and gendarmes to secure polling stations during today’s vote. In Paris, some 12,000 police officers and soldiers from Operation Sentinel – created by the army in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015 and the subsequent Paris terrorist attacks – are also providing security in the French capital and its suburbs.
