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A troubled France votes on its future
Macron's marriage proves politics is different in France
French elections: Will it be Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen?
Story highlights
- Voters are choosing between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen
- Polling companies are expected to give early results Sunday night
Paris (CNN)France is voting in the final act of one of the most tumultuous presidential election campaigns in the country's history.
All
voting stations will close by 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) Sunday, and polling
companies release usually reliable projections of the final result
almost immediately afterward.
Whoever wins the poll -- whether it's the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron or the far-right's Marine Le Pen -- the next French president will inherit a country bitterly divided.
French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron, left, and Marine Le Pen casting their votes Sunday.
France
is suffering from high unemployment, a stagnant economy and security
worries. The government has struggled to cope with immigration and
integration.
By midday, 28.23% of
registered voters had cast their ballots, Interior Ministry figures
show. That figure is likely to allay fears in Macron's camp, as a high
abstention rate would likely hit him harder than Le Pen, according to
analysts.
In the election's first round two weeks ago, voters rejected representatives of all the traditional mainstream political parties in France, with Macron and Le Pen topping an 11-strong field, taking 24% and 21% of the vote respectively.
The two-round election, which has played out like something of a soap opera, was hit with another scandal at the eleventh hour, when Macron's campaign announced it had been the target of a "massive and coordinated" hacking operation.
Around 14.5 gigabytes of emails, personal and business documents were posted to the text-sharing site Pastebin just hours before the campaign period came to a close Friday night.
Macron's
party said the hackers had mixed fake documents with authentic ones "to
create confusion and misinformation." It is not clear who was behind
the attack.
Le Pen has spent the
past few weeks battling to extend her appeal beyond her traditional base
of supporters, while Macron has been attempting to convince voters that
he is not part of the political elite they rejected in the first round.
Macron,
39, has campaigned on a pro-Europe, pro-integration platform. Le Pen,
48, has suggested she would aim to take France out of the European
Union, withdraw it from NATO and forge closer ties with Russia.
A woman with her dog enters a voting booth to cast her ballot in Saint Jean de Luz, France, on Sunday.
Security on voters' minds
Voters
in the capital city of Paris braved heavy rains to get to polling
stations. At a town hall in the city's 18th district, a group of nuns
from the Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre was among
morning voters.
Nuns
from the Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre cast
their votes at a polling station in the 18th district of Paris.
Pascal Bardin, 52, described the election as crucial, saying the future of Europe rested on the vote.
"Depending on how it goes, this vote could threaten global security, national stability and our values," Bardin told CNN.
French President Francois Hollande calls on France to choose the 'right road.' 00:49
Macron
voted in the northern city of Le Touquet, where he and his wife,
Brigitte Trogneux, greeted supporters with handshakes and kisses. Le Pen
cast her vote in the heartland of Henin-Beaumont, also in the country's
north, with her partner, Louis Aliot.
French
President Francois Hollande cast his ballot in the southwestern city of
Tulle. He made the unusual decision not to run for a second term, as
his approval ratings have sunk in recent years following a spate of
deadly terrorist attacks.
He spoke
to journalists outside the polling station, saying that France had
overcome many challenges and would continue to do so under a new
president.
"We must always have a
road ahead. It is this road that makes us France -- we will never go
backwards, we will always move forwards, looking for the right road for
progress."
Hollande presided over the country during the 2015 Paris attacks, the deadliest terror attack on French soil in its modern history, in which 130 people were killed.
Photos: French vote for next president
French presidential election candidate Emmanuel Macron leaves his home to go vote in Le Touquet, France.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Security
officers near the Louvre museum on May 7. Macron's campaign had booked
the courtyard there to hold a rally after the polls close.
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Photos: French vote for next president
A woman enters a voting booth in Saint Jean de Luz, France, Sunday, May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Election signs at a polling station in Rennes, France on May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Outgoing French President Francois Hollande looks out of a window in Tulle, France on May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
A
man looks at election posters of the French presidential candidates,
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, at the French consulate in Jerusalem,
on May 7. French citizens worldwide are casting their votes during the
second round of the country's presidential vote.
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Photos: French vote for next president
A voter arrives at a polling station in Marseille, France, on Sunday, May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
People queue at a polling station in Marseille, France.
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Photos: French vote for next president
French
presidential candidate Marine Le Pen moves to shakes hands with a woman
at a polling station in Henin-Beaumont, France, Le Pen's home town.
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Photos: French vote for next president
French presidential election candidate Emmanuel Macron leaves his home to go vote in Le Touquet, France.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Security
officers near the Louvre museum on May 7. Macron's campaign had booked
the courtyard there to hold a rally after the polls close.
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Photos: French vote for next president
A woman enters a voting booth in Saint Jean de Luz, France, Sunday, May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Election signs at a polling station in Rennes, France on May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
Outgoing French President Francois Hollande looks out of a window in Tulle, France on May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
A
man looks at election posters of the French presidential candidates,
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, at the French consulate in Jerusalem,
on May 7. French citizens worldwide are casting their votes during the
second round of the country's presidential vote.
Hide Caption
1 of 9
Photos: French vote for next president
A voter arrives at a polling station in Marseille, France, on Sunday, May 7.
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Photos: French vote for next president
People queue at a polling station in Marseille, France.
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Photos: French vote for next president
French
presidential candidate Marine Le Pen moves to shakes hands with a woman
at a polling station in Henin-Beaumont, France, Le Pen's home town.
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Photos: French vote for next president
French presidential election candidate Emmanuel Macron leaves his home to go vote in Le Touquet, France.
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The
country is still under a state of emergency following those attacks and
several others. Some 12,000 extra police and soldiers are on duty in
the capital for election day to secure polling stations and the
candidates' headquarters, Paris police said.
There
appeared to be a security alert at the Louvre in Paris in the early
afternoon, as police cleared journalists from an area outside the art
museum's famous glass pyramid.
Macron's
camp has booked the courtyard there to hold a rally after the polls
close, and hundreds of journalists are accredited to cover the event.
Paris
police tried to play down the sweep, saying they were scouring the
scene to check there was "nothing dangerous," in what they said was a
"precaution."
Soldiers patrol the Louvre in Paris, where Emmanuel Macron will hold a rally after polls close Sunday.
Campaign gets dirty
The campaign period ahead of the final round has had its dirty moments.
Both candidates traded insults in a bad-tempered, head-to-head debate on
French television on Wednesday. Macron called Le Pen a liar who sowed
division and hatred, while she accused him of being soft on terrorism
and said he would preside over a nation enfeebled by its powerful
neighbor, Germany.
Le Pen and Macron faced each other in a bad-tempered TV debate.
Less than 24 hours after the debate, the Paris prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation
after Macron filed a complaint against Le Pen following her claim
during the debate that he may have an offshore account in the Bahamas.
Macron,
a former investment banker, who also served as economy minister under
Hollande, has struggled to connect with voters in the rural and de-industrialized areas of the country.
He was upstaged in his own hometown of Amiens, when Le Pen made a surprise visit to a Whirlpool factory at threat of closure to rally support while Macron met with union representatives in the same city.
Le Pen's camp heavily criticized Macron for his celebrations after the first round of voting, labeling him as arrogant.
Will voters abstain?
In
the final polls published before campaigning ended on Friday, Macron
appeared to have retained a healthy lead. But the unknown quantity is
turnout: A campaign launched last week urged voters to stay at home,
leave their ballot envelope empty or submit a blank piece of paper
instead of a ballot slip. It is unclear if the steady voter turnout in
the morning will continue through the day.
Boycott 2017 badges at a May Day rally in Paris. The Boycott 2017 campaign calls on voters to back "neither Le Pen, nor Macron.
While
the first-round turnout was relatively healthy, official government
figures show more people abstained in the April 23 vote than the number
who voted for any single candidate -- including Macron and National
Front's Le Pen.
The big challenge
for Le Pen has been to broaden her appeal. At the end of last month, she
announced that she had temporarily stepped down from her position as
leader of the National Front. Some saw that as an attempt to distance
herself from the party, regarded as toxic by many in France.
But
her position in the polls has barely moved since the first round. If Le
Pen is elected, it would be one of the biggest shocks in postwar French
political history.
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