Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jon Henley European affairs correspondent (earlier) and Bonnie Malkin (now)

Macron and Le Pen go to second round in French election – as it happened

Independent centrist Macron estimated to have taken 23.7% of vote with National Front leader Le Pen on 21.7%; official results to follow
Independent centrist Macron estimated to have taken 23.7% of vote with National Front leader Le Pen on 21.7%; official results to follow Photograph: Vincent Isore/IP3/Getty Images

Signing off

We are going to close this live blog now. Our new one is here.

There remains just one department to be counted and its results won’t change the overall picture. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen won the first round of voting and will head into a run off second round on 7 May.

For more on the night’s news from France, take a look at Angelique Chrisafis’s election wrap. Our evening summary is also a good place to find all the main things you need to know. Thanks for reading!

Just as we are closing Reuters is reporting the final figures: Macron has 23.75% of votes and Le Pen has 21.53%, while Fillon has 19.91% and Melenchon has 19.64% according to the interior ministry.

Updated

This graph shows how the euro jumped on news of the first round results:

How the euro reacted to the results of the first round of the French election
How the euro reacted to the results of the first round of the French election Photograph: Yahoo

Here is a look at the front pages of some of the French papers:

Still no final result but we are down to the very last results. Have a look at our results tracker which shows that 105 of 107 departments have been counted.

While we wait for the final result it is probably worth revisiting an Associated Press interview with Donald Tump published over the weekend in which he is asked about his intervention in the French elections.

As you will see he is pressed on whether he supports Marine Le Pen. Eventually he says he does not endorse her...

AP: This morning you tweeted that after the possible terrorist attack in Paris, that it will have a big effect on the upcoming French election. What did you mean by that?

TRUMP: Well, I think it will have a big effect on who people are going to vote for in the election.

AP: Do you think it’s going to help Marine Le Pen?

TRUMP: I think so.

AP: Do you believe that she should be the president?

TRUMP: No, I have no comment on that, but I think that it’ll probably help her because she is the strongest on borders and she is the strongest on what’s been going on in France.

AP: Do you worry at all that by saying that, that a terrorist attack would have an impact on a democratic election, that it would actually embolden terrorists to try to —.

TRUMP: No. Look, everybody is making predictions who is going to win. I am no different than you, you could say the same thing. ...

AP: I just wonder if you are encouraging, you are the president of the United States, so to say that you worry that it encourages terrorists ...

TRUMP: No, I am no different than — no, I think it discourages terrorists, I think it discourages. I think what we’ve done on the border discourages it. I think that my stance on having people come in to this country that we have no idea who they are and in certain cases you will have radical Islamic terrorism. I’m not going to have it in this country. I’m not going to let what happened to France and other places happen here. And it’s already largely, you know — we have tens — we have hundreds of thousands of people that have been allowed into our country that should not be here. They shouldn’t be here. We have people allowed into our country with no documentation whatsoever. They have no documentation and they were allowed under the previous administrations, they were allowed into our country. It’s a big mistake.

AP: Just so that I am clear. You are not endorsing her for the office, but you are —

TRUMP: I am not endorsing her and I didn’t mention her name.

AP: Right, I just wanted to make sure I have that clear.

TRUMP: I believe whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism and whoever is the toughest at the borders will do well at the election. I am not saying that person is going to win, she is not even favored to win, you know. Right now, she is in second place.

Evening summary

  • The first round result is an epochal political upheaval for France. For the first time in the nearly 60-year history of the Fifth Republic, neither of the candidates of the established parties of left and right will be in the run off.

Either we continue on the path to complete deregulation, or you choose France. You now have the chance to choose real change. This is what I propose: real change. It is time to liberate the French nation from arrogant elites who want to dictate how it must behave. Because yes, I am the candidate of the people.

  • Macron said that in the space of a year, since founding his En Marche! movement, it had “changed the face of French politics” and asked for a big victory for a large governing majority:

I want to construct a majority to govern and to transform, of new talents, in which all will have their place. I will not ask where they come from, but whether they agree with the renewal of our politics, the security of the French people, reforming society and relaunching the European project.

You are the face of this renewal. My fellow citizens, there is not more than one France. There is only one, ours, the France of patriots, in a Europe that protects and that we must reform. The task is immense, but I am ready, at your sides. Vive la République, vive la France.

  • We are still awaiting the final interior ministry result and will bring that to you as soon as it is released.

For a deeper look at what drives Macron personally and politically it is worth revisiting this profile written by the Guardian’s Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis.

After once likening his rebellious streak to France’s 15th-century saint and saviour Joan of Arc, Macron’s premise is to side-step the old party machines and build a direct relationship with the French people. He believes that ever since King Louis XVI’s head was chopped off in the revolution, France has been trying to compensate for the lack of a true leader figure who could personify France. The postwar president General de Gaulle fitted the bill, he has argued, but since then, the increasingly “ordinary” characters who served as president have left a kind of “empty seat at the heart of political life”.

For more, here is the full piece:

More reaction is flowing in from across Europe.

Denmark’s prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has expressed cautious optimism that former banker Macron would emerge victorious over Le Pen.

Norwegian foreign minister Borge Brende, whose country is not a member of the European Union, welcomed the results on Twitter.

Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and leader of the anti-Islam anti-immigrant Freedom Party, swung behind Le Pen, welcoming the result as a “bright day for patriots in France and elsewhere who want more national sovereignty and less EU and immigration.

“I have just sent her my sincere congratulations. Now on the way to a vigorous second round, I am hoping for a President Le Pen.”

Former British chancellor George Osborne, who is now editor of the Evening Standard newspaper, has joined in the chorus of politicians congratulating Macron and former Labour leader Ed Miliband couldn’t resist a bit of a troll …

Updated

AFP has a good wrap of international reaction to the results:

Media in several countries pointed to the historic defeat suffered by the mainstream left and right, with the Wall Street Journal calling the vote a “stunning rebuke of France’s mainstream political forces”.

In an article headlined “France torn apart”, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted that more than 40% had cast their ballots for the far-right or far-left.

“Macron’s victory is so narrow that in the two previous presidential elections, he wouldn’t have won a place in the second round,” it said, warning against assumptions the centrist would win in May.

Switzerland’s Le Temps said the result signalled that the French republic was “broken” and that voters wanted “deep changes”.

The second round, it said, is “set to oppose two visions of France - one inclusive and open to the world and its concerns, and the other cut off behind its borders and its old myths”.

The stakes are high, it said: “The final choice of the French will change their country, but also the face of the world.”

The New York Times noted Macron’s strange status as both someone who has set himself apart from establishment parties and someone who hails from the political elite.

“His profile is that of an insider, but his policies are those of an outsider,” the Times said. “If the ever-precocious Mr. Macron is to succeed, his first challenge is to sell a product still largely unfamiliar to almost everyone: himself.”

Updated

The results in France have made the front pages of newspapers in the UK, with the Daily Mail hailing a New French revolution and The Times claiming the French elite have been “humiliated as outsiders sweep to victory”. The Guardian looks ahead to the run-off vote on 7 May, saying the result redraws the French political divide.

Updated

Bonnie Malkin here taking over from Jon Henley for the time being.

Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, the UK and Ireland correspondent for the French daily Libération, writes in the Guardian tonight that the much anticipated domino effect following the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election has not, so far, materialised and the relief in France is immense.

“This result is a relief but it also represents a shock – not because of Marine Le Pen’s presence in the second round, which the polls prepared us for. But because the next president will come from neither of the two traditional main parties, the conservatives and socialists, the first time since the beginning of the fifth Republic, founded in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle.”

Read the full piece here:

Here is the actual state of the count from a few minutes ago – very close to the polling institutes’ vote estimations published when polling stations closed more than three hours ago. And pretty close to their opinion polls over the past few weeks, too. Whisper it quietly, but French pollsters may know their job ...

Updated

A lightning Ipsos poll of second round voting intentions sees Macron beating Le Pen by 62%-38%:

Interesting take from US polling guru Nate Silver:

Understandably, reactions from around Europe have been ecstatic. Macron, now the overwhelming favourite to become the next French president, is avowedly pro-European, while Le Pen has vowed to take France out of the euro and hold a referendum on French membership of the EU.

Steffen Siebert, German chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, said it was “good that Emmanuel Macron has been successful with his positions for a strong EU and a social market economy. Good luck for the coming two weeks.”

Martin Schulz, the Social Democrats’ for German chancellor and former European parliament president, also tweeted his congratulations and urged “all French democrats to unite so the nationalist does not become president”.

And Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for European commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted his boss’s congratulations too, and wished Macron good luck for the second round:

Here are the opening paragraphs of Angelique Chrisafis’s news story on the night’s events:

The independent centrist Emmanuel Macron has topped the first round of the French presidential election and according to projections will face the far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen in a standoff marked by anti-establishment anger that knocked France’s traditional political parties out of the race.

Macron, 39, a political novice, now becomes the favourite to be elected as France’s next president. He is the youngest ever French presidential hopeful and has never run for election before.

After the UK’s vote to leave the European Union and the US vote for the political novice Donald Trump as president, the French presidential race is the latest election to shake up establishment politics by kicking out the figures that stood for the status quo.

The historic first-round result marked the rejection of the ruling political class – it was the first time since the postwar period that the traditional left and right ruling parties were both ejected from the race in the first round.

You can read the full story here.

Sylvain Crépon, a sociologist specialising in the Front National, has an astute take on the Macron-Le Pen face-off for Libération:

Of all the candidates Marine Le Pen could have faced in the second round, Emmanuel Macron is the one who is projected to beat her the most convincingly. For all that, he is the candidate that she would most like to confront.

To understand why, we need to return to the FN’s project of reconfiguring French democracy around the question of identity ... It wants the principle divide to be between those attached to national identity (nationalists, patriots, souverainists) and those who seek to destroy it (globalists, cosmopolitans, pro-Europeans).

If Le Pen can replace a supposedly outmoded left-right divide based on economic and social criteria with with this new division, she can present her party as the one true alternative to what she describes as a system of “uncontrolled globalisation”. And that is a system of which Emmanuel Macron is the perfect incarnation.

Macron calls for a large governing majority so he can really set about putting his programme into action:

That’s why I want to construct a majority to govern and to transform, of new talents, in which all will have their place. I will not ask where they come from, but whether they agree with the renewal of our politics, the security of the French people, reforming society and relaunching the European project.

You are the face of this renewal. You are the face of France’s hope. My fellow citizens, there is not more than one France. There is only one, ours, the France of patriots, in a Europe that protects and that we must reform. The task is immense, but I am ready, at your sides. Vive la République, vive la France.

To all those who have accompanied me since April 2016, in founding and bringing En Marche! to life, I would like to say this: in the space of a year, we have changed the face of French political life.

Macron speaks

The first-round victor, Emmanuel Macron, has addressed his cheering supporters at the Porte de Versailles in Paris:

Today, the people of France have spoken. As our country confronts an unprecedented moment in its history, it has responded in the best way possible - by voting in huge numbers. It has decided to place me first in this first round.

I want to be the president of all the French people – of patriots in the face of the nationalists’ threat. A president who protects, transforms, and builds, who allows those who want to create, innovate, do business, and work to do so more easily and more quickly. A president who helps those who have less, who are more fragile.

I will work over the coming fortnight so that together we can gather as many people as possible around my candidacy. The strength of this coming together will be decisive for government. The challenge this evening is not to vote against a person, but to decide to break completely with a system that has been incapable of responding to our country’s problems for 30 years.

Updated

A word of clarification about the official interior ministry count that is under way and shows Marine Le Pen in the lead.

This is the ongoing actual vote count which in its early stages includes mainly rural constituencies that tend to lean to the right, while results from urban areas that lean left will come in later.

The vote estimates released earlier, which are not opinion polls but partial vote counts from selected representative polling stations and are usually accurate to within a point or so, still stand. They show Macron winning on 23-24%, and Le Pen on 21-23%.

Updated

The euro has hit a five-month high, as the early polling figures from France reassure the financial markets, writes Graeme Wearden:

The single currency jumped almost 2% when trading began in Asia, surging over $1.091. It also rallied 1.5% against the British pound to around 85p. Investors had been nervous that Emmanuel Macron might fail to reach the run-off, as he is seen as the candidate best equipped to prevent Marine Le Pen winning the presidency.

Dean Turner of UBS said investors would be relieved that a mainstream candidate made it through to the second round. “As things stand, Macron is on course to be the next French president, so it is likely that we see a recovery in risk appetite toward French and other European markets,” predicted Turner.

He added that markets would “still be alert” to the possibility of a Le Pen victory in the second round. Jeremy Cook of currency exchange firm World First said the euro was dancing high.

“This positivity is mainly as a result that if there was one match up that the anti-EU Le Pen did not want in the 2nd round it is Macron. There has not been a poll that puts her within 15% of Macron in the second round,” Cook explained.

Updated

Down in Nice, Oscar Lopez has been speaking to disappointed Fillon and Mélenchon voters who will now switch to Macron, and to a Le Pen supporter:

“I knew it,” said Solange, 70, with a slight sigh, after being told the election results. “I voted for Fillon, and I’m disappointed. But it’s not catastrophic.” She didn’t have a lot of confidence in Macron, though she would vote for him. “He’s too young,” she said. “And he’s still a socialist, no matter what he says.”

She could “never vote for Le Pen,” Solange said. “We don’t need anymore hate in this country. And she would be a catastrophe for the economy. We don’t have a choice but to vote for Macron.”

Sitting outside a fast food restaurant, Montassar Rejob, 27, was similarly set against the Front National. “Le Pen wants to divide the country,” he said. “It’s going to end in civil war.” He had voted Mélenchon, “because he was the only one who had dreams,” but, like Solange, admitted that against Le Pen the choice was simple: “It will be Macron.”

For Laurent, 22, the choice was not so easy - he had voted for Le Pen in the first round. “Look at what happened in Nice, what’s happening in France,” he said, explaining that one of his friends had lost his mother and grandmother in the 2016 Nice attack.

“It’s shocking. Something has to happen, and Le Pen is the only one that will take action.” Still, now that she had made it through to the second round, Laurent was having doubts.

“I’m not sure if maybe she’s a bit too extreme,” he said, admitting that he was against her plans to leave the European Union. “It’s complicated. I’ll have to reread their programs and think about it. Either way, it’s going to be a huge change for France.”

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris writes with a salutary reminder that France has parliamentary elections coming soon that will determine the extent to which the new president can actually govern:

Whoever wins the Macron-Le Pen race, the parliamentary elections that follow in June will be crucial. The majority in the lower house will determine how a new president could govern, and France is likely to require a new form of coalition politics. If elected, Macron – who is fielding MP candidates from his fledgling movement, En Marche! (On the Move) – would have to seek a new kind of parliamentary majority across the centre left-right divide. If Le Pen did win the presidency, she would very probably not win a parliament majority, thwarting her ability to govern. But her party hopes to increase its MPs in the 577-seat house. Currently Le Pen has only two MPs.

Le Pen calls for "real change"

Speaking in her constituency of Hénin-Beaumont, Marine Le Pen had this to say on her advance to the second round run-off on 7 May against Emmanuel Macron:

You have brought me to the second round of the presidential election. I’d like to express my most profound gratitude. The first step that should lead the French people to the l’Elysée has been taken. This is a historic result.

It is also an act of French pride, the act of a people lifting their heads. It will have escaped no one that the system tried by every means possible to stifle the great political debate that must now take place. The French people now have a very simple choice: either we continue on the path to complete deregulation, or you choose France.

You now have the chance to choose real change. This is what I propose: real change/ It is time to liberate the French nation from arrogant elites who want to dictate how it must behave. Because yes, I am the candidate of the people.

Updated

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the hard-left veteran currently credited with fourth place just behind François Fillon, has said on his Facebook page that he does not yet accept the projected results, saying they are “based on opinion polls” and urging voters to show restraint and commentators to show prudence.

Updated

Police have fired tear gas on the Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris as crowds of young people, some from anarchist and anti-fascist groups, gathered to protest at Marine Le Pen’s second-place finish and her hardline, anti-immigrant policies.

Anti-fascists clash with police officers as they demonstrate in Paris.
Anti-fascists clash with police officers as they demonstrate in Paris. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Fillon concedes defeat, backs Macron

Conservative candidate François Fillon has conceded defeat and called on his supporters to back Emmanuel Macron in the second round:

Despite all my efforts, my determination, I have not succeeded in convincing my fellow countrymen and women. The obstacles in my path were too numerous and too cruel. This defeat is mine, I accept the responsibility, it is mine and mine alone to bear.

We have to choose what is best for our country. Abstention is not in my genes, above all when an extremist party is close to power. The Front National is well known for its violence and its intolerance, and its programme would lead our country to bankruptcy and Europe into chaos.

Extremism can can only bring unhappiness and division to France. There is no other choice than to vote against the far right. I will vote for Emmanuel Macron. I consider it my duty to tell you this frankly. It is up to you to reflect on what is best for your country, and for your children.

Updated

More from Marion Maréchal Le Pen, Marine’s niece and a Front National MP. Le Pen’s progression to the second round run-off is “a historic victory for patriots and sovereignists”, she said, adding she was happy with the “clear divide” with Macron.

For fifteen years, there has not been a pro-sovereignty candidate in the second round of a presidential election. This is great ideological victory.

The French prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, has joined his Socialist party’s defeated candidate, Benoît Hamon, in urging the party’s voters to support Emmanuel Macron in the second round.

I solemnly call for a vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round in order to beat the Front National and obstruct the disastrous project of Marine Le Pen that would take France backwards and divide the French people.

A (very) brief word from an Emmanuel Macron spokesman to the French news agency AFP:

We’re turning a page in French political history.

It is worth underlining that this is the first time in modern French history that neither of the mainstream centre-right or centre-left parties of government that have governed France since the second world war have qualified for the second round of a presidential election.

Updated

Since you’re here …… we’ve got a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever, but far fewer are paying for it. Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure. You can give to the Guardian by becoming a monthly supporter or by making a one-off contribution.

Polling for a projected second round pitting Macron against Le Pen have consistently shown the centrist winning by a very comfortable margin. Here’s a Guardian graphic of the way the polls have developed over recent months:

Macron - Le Pen polling

Marion Maréchal Le Pen, Marine’s niece, has tweeted her delight at her aunt’s presence in the second round run-off on 7 May, describing it as “a great victory for patriots”:

Updated

Gérard Collomb, the Socialist mayor of Lyon and a Macron supporter, has told France 2 television:

He has succeeded in doing what few people expected. When, a year ago, we launched his movement En Marche!, people said: ‘It’s impossible, someone who does not belong to a political party can’t reach the second round.” It reveals a serious malaise in society, with people who don’t recognise themselves in the traditional parties. We are, without doubt, beginning a new era.

Different broadcasters and newspapers are giving marginally different figures from their individual polling institutes, but the overall picture puts Macron marginally ahead of Le Pen (some polling institutes have them dead level).

Fillon and Mélenchon are trailing on around 19.5%. The Socialist candidate, Hamon, is way down on 6.5%.

The two second-round contestants seem clear. It will be the independent centrist versus the far-right leader – two radically opposing visions of France.

Updated

Initial vote estimate: Macron and Le Pen through to runoff

The first vote estimates for the first round of France’s presidential election show the independent centrist, Emmanuel Macron, has scored about 23.7% of the vote and Marine Le Pen about 22%, so they have qualified for the second run-off round.

Remember, this is not the official result and those figures could yet change.

Updated

Candidates await results

Marine Le Pen is in her fiefdom of Hénin-Beaumont, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is in a bar in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, François Fillon in his campaign HQ in the 15th arrondissement, and Socialist Benoît Hamon at La Mutualité conference centre.

Updated

The French interior ministry has issued a warning about fake vote estimates circulating on social media, saying no official statements have yet been made.

Here are the views of some other Guardian readers in France, who voted for Mélenchon and Le Pen.

If you voted in the elections, we would like you to share your thoughts on the candidates with us and will use some of your comments in our coverage.

Marinou, 46, Normandy, special needs teacher, voted for Mélenchon: “He’s a clever, decent man. You can trust him. He speaks for normal people and shows true respect for us. I always voted for left parties. I work in a very deprived part of France. I can see how much children suffer from poverty and exclusion.”

Clément, 24, Besançon, student, voted for Mélenchon: “He is the only serious candidate that puts humanity before economy, democracy before presidency, life before productivity. He is the last serious candidate that seems to actually be from the left.”

Clément, 30, Lyon, writer: “Mélenchon brought some ‘joie de vivre’ out of us. We have to stand up to Germany and develop relationships with all countries in the EU, such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and, oddly enough, the UK. Brexit changed everything. We need to speak with everybody to solve our problems.”

Jacques, 21, Mulhouse, voted for Le Pen: “Le Front National has a vision for my country. The absolute freedom without restrictions and regulations ruined several aspects of French society and economy. France has signed over important sovereign rights. There is too much tolerance to terrorism, lack of independence and self dominion external authorities rule the country. I was usually socialist but in the recent years France has changed dramatically. France is not the country I was born in.”

Updated

How does France’s system of vote estimates work?

Unlike the exit polls operated in many countries, in which people are asked how they voted, the initial vote estimate in French elections – in use and steadily perfected since 1965 – is based on an actual vote count.

Pollsters select about 200 polling stations around the country, in rural areas, small towns and urban agglomerations, carefully chosen to be as representative as possible of the country as a whole.

When the polling stations close – all are among those that close early, at 7pm – and as the votes are being counted, a polling official records, for a sizeable sample of the ballots, the number of votes for each candidate.

Those numbers are then run through a sophisticated computer program that adjusts them for past results and assorted variables, and produces a national vote estimate. This is not the official result, but nor is it an opinion poll.

It is usually very accurate, to within a percentage point or so – but this being an exceptionally close race, a percentage point may be decisive. So either we will have a reliable result at 7pm, or we won’t.

Updated

First polling stations close

The first polling stations have now closed, mainly in rural areas, and counting has started. Polling stations in large cities and urban areas will remain open until 8pm CET.

Updated

In Nice, Oscar Lopez has found voters seemingly willing to forgive François Fillon his judicial problems. Laura Lili, 27, said the entire campaign was ridiculous – “All they did was attack each other, nobody spoke about their programmes” – but in the end, she opted for the conservative candidate.

Fillon’s promise to support French businesses won her over. “Nowadays everything is made overseas,” she said. “All we have are big franchises while French stores shut down. We’re going to hit a crisis.”

And while immigration was a serious concern, Fillon’s promise to stay in the EU was key: “It’s our strength,” she says. As far as the Penelopegate affair, she says “he screwed it up. But everyone’s done that. He’s the best of all of them, for the future of France.”

Soldiers on patrol in nice on polling day.
Soldiers on patrol in Nice amid heightened security concerns on polling day. Photograph: Oscar Lopez

Daphne Atlani, 42, was equally disappointed in the campaign. “It was a catastrophe,” she says. “Our real questions were never answered.” In the end, she too chose Fillon. “He has the experience,” she says. “And I don’t care that he paid his wife. They’ve all done that, and anyone in that position would do the same – it’s just human nature.”

Atlani was also concerned about France’s economy, and was worried about immigration. But she was wary of the extreme positions taken up by parties like the National Front. “Being represented by Le Pen or Mélenchon, that’s scary,” she says. “I’m very frightened about the results.”

Updated

There have been more twists and turns – and more firsts – in this election campaign than in any other in living memory.

This is, for example, the first time a sitting first-term president has decided not to run for re-election and the first time a candidate in a major French election has been under formal judicial investigation.

It’s also the first time that there has been a serious risk of neither of the two mainstream centre-right and centre-left parties that have governed France since the war making it through to the second round.

Besides François Hollande, other big beasts of French politics – former president Nicolas Sarkozy, former prime minister Alain Juppé – fell at the first hurdle. A victory for Emmanuel Macron would be the first for a candidate without a party.

And then of course, there was Penelopegate ... Here’s a look back at the twists and turns of this genuinely remarkable campaign.

Guardian readers in France have been answering our request for their views on the election, and why they chose to vote for a particular candidate.

Here are some who have opted for the centrist Emmanuel Macron; we will feature the views of other candidates’ supporters through the evening:

Pascal, 62, Paris: “Macron is young, smart and is not tightly tied to the organisations of big political parties. He seems able to achieve a good balance between pragmatism and fidelity to principles from the traditional left.”

René, 48, Versailles, police officer: “It’s more a default choice. I don’t want an extremist in charge, nor a corrupt Fillon. I hope that Macron will take some measures to make the country go forward instead of living in fear.”

Jacques-Henri, 54, Paris, restaurateur: “It’s high time to move on, with new faces and a new attitude. Macron is the only true pro-European candidate. He wants to change our country with people notwithstanding where they come from. He expects results and facts.”

Guillaume, 36, Dordogne, web designer: “I am not convinced he’ll be a great president, but I am convinced the other three would be a disaster. Mélenchon and Le Pen both crave the death of the EU and are blind to the damage it would do to France and the wider world.”

Updated

Since you’re here …… we’ve got a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever, but far fewer are paying for it. Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure. You can give to the Guardian by becoming a monthly supporter or by making a one-off contribution.

France’s 2017 presidential election has been one of the tightest and least predictable in generations. After the final set of opinion polls on Friday, of four candidates leading the first round any two could conceivably make it to the runoff.

Polls show race too close to call

What’s more, up to 25% of voters were estimated to be undecided on the eve of the vote. No one, in short, should be under any illusions: anything could yet happen.

Updated

In Paris, meanwhile, some voters lamented the difficulty of the decision – while others said what mattered most was the candidates’ personality …

France votes: ‘the determining factor is personality’

Updated

In Nice, scene of the truck attack that left 86 people dead last July, security was at the front of many minds, reports Oscar Lopez – particularly following Thursday’s killing of a policeman on the Champs Elysées, an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Armed soldiers outside a polling station in Nice.
Armed soldiers outside a polling station in Nice. Photograph: Oscar Lopez

“It’s not normal, all those army guys patrolling the streets,” said Richard, 63, who did not want to give his last name. “It’s scary. The Islamists need to be stopped.”

Richard, who is Armenian, had come from church to vote. “There was nobody there,” he says. “People have lost their beliefs. Islam gives them something to believe in.”

When it came to the campaign, he says it was “Awful. All blah blah blah.” He had, however, chosen a candidate. “I’m voting right, but not Fillon,” he says – then, after a brief pause, “I’m voting for a lady.”

For Nelly Laforge, 60, it was the conservative Fillon’s stance on national security that had won her vote. “We’ve survived many attacks,” she says. “It’s scary. I have to go to Paris on Monday and I’m worried about being on public transport.”

She was also concerned that, after the attacks in Paris on Thursday, even more people would turn to Le Pen. The fake job scandal that engulfed Fillon did not bother her.

“All politicians have done the same thing,” she says. “He has experience. He’s presidential.” Still, if Fillon doesn’t make it past the first round, she said she’d be willing to support Macron: “People are tired of left-right politics.”

Updated

Time to spare as the clock ticks down to 8pm CET, the earliest we can expect any meaningful early results? (Even then, they will not be definitive – and the contest could simply be too close to call until later …)

If you want an insight into what drives some of Marine Le Pen’s voters, I thoroughly recommend my colleague Angelique Chrisafis’s revealing voyage into the heart of rural Burgundy, once a heartland of the left and now home to a lot of angry people …

Marine Le Pen’s rise in ‘forgotten France’ — video

Updated

One of those polling institutes – Ifop – has, however, published an estimate of what it thinks the final turnout will be. It’s high, but not an absolute record:

A high turnout, of course, may not be an indication of anything in particular in this highly unusual election: in 2002, a record 28% abstention rate was widely seen as helping Jean-Marie Le Pen. This time, a low abstention rate could be partly down to the determination of his daughter’s voters.

Updated

Belgian media have published what they say is an initial first-round exit poll putting the independent centrist Macron ahead of the Front National leader Le Pen. No one is clear where this poll could have come from and French media are advising it should be treated with extreme caution.

The nine main polling institutes active in France during the campaign – BVA, Elabe, Harris Interactive, Ifop, Ipsos, Kantar, Odoxa, OpinionWay and Viavoice – all undertook not to carry out any exit polls on voting day.

The French polling commission had this to say on the matter on its website:

As a result, any reference on the day of the vote to any such poll can only be the fruit of rumours or manipulations and should be accorded no credit whatsoever.

Updated

The French interior minister has just announced the turnout at 5pm French time. At 69.42%, it was slightly down on the previous election in 2012 but considerably up on 2002, when a high abstention rate was thought to have contributed to the shock first-round breakthrough by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father.

Many observers believe turnout could again be critical in this election, as could the large number of undecided voters – up to 25% were estimated to be not sure how they would cast their ballot on the eve of the poll.

Welcome to what could be a nailbiting night ...

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the first round of voting in France’s presidential election – a crucial but unpredictable contest whose outcome could have far-reaching consequences for both a deeply divided country and the beleaguered European Union.

Polls opened at 8am CET on Sunday and will close at 7pm or, in some urban areas, 8pm. Usually accurate initial results, based on an actual count of votes in several hundred representative polling stations around the country, will be known soon after.

But this is an exceptionally tight race. Any two of the four leading candidates – independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, far-right, anti-EU leader Marine Le Pen, scandal-hit conservative François Fillon and far-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon – could go through to the second round run-off on 7 May.

We will be keeping you up to date with all the latest developments as France’s 47 million voters begin the process of choosing their next president. You can read a brief guide to the candidates here, and a more comprehensive all-you-need-to-know here.

Our French correspondents Angelique Chrisafis and Kim Willsher will be bringing you news and insights from the ground throughout the evening. Follow them on Twitter at @achrisafis and @kimwillsher1.

You can contact me with comments, questions or tips at @jonhenley or by email at jon.henley@theguardian.com – although I can’t promise to have time to read or respond to all. Here we go, then – it could be an exciting ride.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
In My Tiny Kitchen, Every Inch Counts – Yet Drew Barrymore’s Ingenious Blender Earned a Spot on My Counter (And Replaced 3 Bulky Appliances)
The new 'Kitchen System' is a personal blender and food processor all in one, making it a must-have for small spaces (starting with mine)
Homes & Gardens
Homes & Gardens
Former Texas Roadhouse worker calls out the outlet for ‘scooping out’ a bug from their cinnamon butter, but people noticed something even worse
Everyone has seen the viral videos of secret menu hacks or behind-the-scenes kitchen tours. But one former Texas Roadhouse server’s “throwback” TikTok of a bug in cinnamon butter is a literal nightmare. People with a fear of bugs, you might want to sit this one out.
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
From YouTuber to NASCAR driver: Cleetus McFarland expands his racing resume at Daytona
Garrett Mitchell is better known as “Cleetus McFarland” to his millions of followers gained over the years as a racing influencer
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Woman orders wedding dress from Dior. Then she sees the box it came in. People are alarmed at the reveal: ‘I thought that was a fridge’
Forget butterflies and happy tears. This Dior bride’s big moment arrived looking less like couture and more like a Home Depot delivery. In a now-viral TikTok, handymen lug a massive wooden crate into her house–except it’s the kind you’d expect to hold a fridge, not a frock.
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
8 Signs Your Healthy Southern Diet is Actually Causing Inflammation
Traditional Southern flavors often rely on fresh produce and lean proteins, but common preparation methods can unintentionally trigger inflammation. While many believe they are following a wholesome regional diet, specific dietary habits might be working against health goals. Identifying these subtle shifts in nutrition can help restore balance and improve…
Budget and the Bees
Budget and the Bees
The science behind the trend for showering in the dark before bed
The latest wellness trend and “sleep hack” involves switching off the bathroom light before stepping into the shower. In the dimness, the water feels louder, the day’s visual clutter fades and the hope is that sleep will come more easily. This practice, often called “dark showering”, has spread on social…
The Conversation
The Conversation
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play