Tense France picks new president

Landmark vote

PARIS: France went to the polls on Sunday to choose between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen for president, in a watershed election both for the divided country and the future of Europe.

The election follows a rollercoaster campaign marked by mudslinging, scandals and a last-minute hacking attack targeting Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister and banker who has never held elected office.

The run-off vote pits the pro-Europe, pro-business Macron against anti-immigration, anti-EU Le Pen, two radically different visions that underline a split in Western democracies.

Le Pen, 48, has portrayed the ballot as a contest between “globalists” like Macron who support free trade and immigration and “patriots” who defend national borders and identities.

She is hoping to spring a shock win that would resonate as widely as Britain’s decision to withdraw from the European Union or the unexpected victory of US President Donald Trump.

Macron, who topped the first round of the election on April 23, is the runaway favourite however, with polls giving him a lead of over 20 points over Le Pen.

“The world is watching”, said 32-year-old marketing worker Marie Piot as she voted in a working-class part of northwest Paris.

“After Brexit and Trump, it’s as if we are the last bastion of the Enlightenment,” she said.

Le Pen cast her ballot in her northern stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, where bare-breasted Femen activists climbed scaffolding on a church and unfurled a banner reading: “Power for Marine, despair for Marianne”, referring to the symbol of France.

Macron and his wife Brigitte voted in the northern seaside resort of Le Touquet where they have a holiday home.

They later travelled to Paris to see in the results.

In a sign of the security jitters caused by a string of Jihadist attacks since 2015, the square outside the Louvre Museum, where Macron will hold a victory party if elected, was evacuated on Sunday afternoon.

A spokesman for Macron’s En Marche (On The Move) movement said a suspicious package had been found. A police source said the area had been cordoned off “simply to banish any doubts”.

Outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande, who decided in December against seeking re-election, cast his ballot in his former electoral fiefdom of Tulle, in central France.

Hollande, who plucked Macron from virtual obscurity to name him economy minister in 2014, said voting “is always an important, significant act, heavy with consequences”.