Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, has won the French presidential election, following a hard-fought battle with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, according to French polling agencies.

On Sunday, voters across France flooded to the ballot box to choose a new president in an unusually tense and important election that puts Europe in the balance as pro-business independent Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen will become the country’s next leader.

The polls opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. local time under the watch of 50,000 security forces guarding against possible extremist attacks. Polling agency projections and initial official results are expected as soon as the final stations close at 8 p.m.

Voter turnout in the runoff election is above 65 percent in late afternoon, a sharp drop of more than 6 percent compared to the last presidential vote. The Interior Ministry announced the turnout had reached 65.3 percent, compared to 71.96 percent in the second round of presidential voting in 2012.

With voting in France’s presidential election still under way, Swiss and Belgian news organizations are reporting election-day polls suggesting that voters are backing Macron by a strong margin over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

The race has been unpredictable and it is too early to say who is winning the election, as millions of votes have yet to be cast.

Continue reading on >> http://verge24.com/2017/05/07/french-presidential-election-emmanuel-macron-defeats-opponent-marine-le-pen/

Putin defeated.


Nice one.

French people are smarter than the Americans.