Wide-open race for French presidency
Print Edition
FRENCH voters flocked to the polls yesterday in the first round of a cliffhanger presidential election seen as vital for the future of the ailing European Union.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are the favorites to progress to a run-off on May 7 but late gains by conservative Francois Fillon and left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon blew the race wide open.
Le Pen, 48-year-old leader of the anti-immigration National Front, hopes to capitalize on security fears that were catapulted to the fore of the campaign after the fatal shooting on Thursday of a policeman on Paris’s Champs Elysees avenue claimed by the Islamic State group.
Voting was brisk, defying forecasts of a low turnout after a campaign dominated by scandals and a flight from the mainstream parties that have alternated in power for the past half century.
After nine hours of voting, turnout was 69.42 percent, one of the highest levels in 40 years. While down slightly on the same point in the 2012 election, an extra hour of voting in smaller towns was expected to take turnout to around 78-81 percent.
Riding a wave of disaffection with globalization that carried Donald Trump to the White House and led Britain to vote for Brexit, Le Pen has vowed to dramatically reduce immigration, abandon the euro and hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU.
While constitutional obstacles would make it difficult for her to uncouple France from the EU, a Le Pen victory could nonetheless be fatal for the EU, already weakened by Britain’s shock vote to leave.
Macron, a 39-year-old pro-EU reformer, is seeking to become France’s youngest president despite never having held elected office.
Tapping into anger with established parties, the former banker and economy minister formed his own movement, “En Marche” (On the Move), that is “neither to the left nor to the right.”
But polls show the scandal-tainted Fillon, a former prime minister, and hard-left firebrand Melenchon also in with a fighting chance.
Le Pen cast her ballot in Henin-Beaumont, a former coal mining town in the party’s northern heartland.
Macron voted in the chic northern seaside resort of Le Touquet with wife Brigitte, his former high school teacher who is 25 years his senior. Fillon and Melenchon both voted in Paris.
With France still under the state of emergency imposed after the Paris attacks of November 2015 security was tight. Around 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers were deployed to guard voters.
Thursday’s shooting on the most famous street in Paris was the latest in a bloody series of terror attacks that have cost more than 230 lives since 2015.
Guy Belkechout, a 79-year-old pensioner who was voting in the working-class Parisian suburb of Trappes, told reporters that security was one of his main concerns.
In the aftermath of the Champs Elysees attack, Le Pen called for France to “immediately” restore controls at EU borders and deport all foreigners on a terror watchlist.
“Candidates who want fewer security measures, who want to reduce the police’s powers, have not got my vote,” Belkechout told reporters.
But Hajar Erhamani, a 39-year-old teaching assistant from the well-heeled Paris suburb of Sevres, said she was more worried about the economy and allegations about politicians lining their pockets with public money.
“You can’t trust politicians these days. On the left and the right, they’re stealing from us,” she said.
Many voters had spent weeks agonizing over which candidate to choose, with many saying they opted for the contender they saw as best-placed to beat Le Pen in the run-off.
Closely watched around the world, the French campaign has been full of twists and turns.
A race that began with the surprise nomination of Fillon as right-wing candidate in November shifted into higher gear in December when unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande decided not to seek re-election.
Hollande’s five years in office have been dogged by a sluggish economy and the constant terror threat.
Fillon was the early frontrunner until his support began to wane after he was charged following accusations that he gave his wife, who was born in Britain, a fictitious job as his parliamentary assistant for which she was being paid nearly 700,000 euros (US$750,000) of public money.
Though there are four main contenders in the election, a total of 11 candidates are taking part.
The candidate for the governing Socialists, Benoit Hamon, was a distant fifth going into yesterday’s vote.
Nearly 47 million people are eligible to vote in the eurozone’s second biggest economy.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
