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Macron ahead in first round with 27.4% after 90% of votes processed - UPDATED

11 April 2022 03:26 (UTC +04:00)

France’s incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is ahead in the first round of presidential elections according to preliminary results with 27.4% of the vote after processing 90% of the ballots, according to the Interior Ministry’s website, APA reports citing CNN.

He is followed by Marine Le Pen with 24.58% and Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise, with 20.96%.

The first round of the presidential elections was held in France on Sunday. Twelve candidates vied for the presidential office. The second round will be held on April 24.

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Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen appear to be the leading candidates in the first round of the French presidential elections, an analysis of early results shows, setting up a rematch of the 2017 contest, APA reports citing CNN.

Macron appears poised to take 28.6% of the votes, putting him in first place, according to an analysis conducted by pollster IFOP-Fiducial for French broadcasters TF1 and LCI. Le Pen is on track to come second with 23.9%.

Twelve candidates were running for the top job. If none of them receives more than 50% of the ballots, the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff on April 24. But a second round is all but guaranteed -- no French presidential candidate has ever won in the first round under the current system.

The contest was marked by voter apathy, with 25% of all eligible voters abstaining, according to IFOP-Fiducial. That makes the turnout the lowest for a first round in 20 years.

Macron is seeking to become the first French president to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002. While polls have given him a consistent edge over the field, the race tightened significantly in the past month.

Surveys ahead of the race showed that a second round of Macron vs. Le Pen was the most likely outcome. Macron handily beat Le Pen five years ago, but experts have said that a second contest between the two would be much tighter than the 2017 race.