Macron, Le Pen Head For Tight Presidential Election Runoff

Emmanual Macron garnered the most votes in the first round of French presidential election and will face Marine Le Pen in the April 24 runoff, according to exit polls ran by several reputable agencies.

• Estimates by Ifop, OpinionWay, Elabe and Ipsos put support for Macron at 28.1-29.5%, with Le Pen estimated to have won 23.3-24.4% of the vote. Left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came third with around 20% of votes.
• Candidates fielded by the Republicans (Pecresse) and Socialists (Hidalgo) suffered devastating defeats, which confirms the disintegration of their traditional (pre-2017) position in the French political landscape.
• Pecresse and Hidalgo were joined by Greens' Jadot and Communists' Roussel in throwing their weight behind Macron as they warned against risks associated with the potential of Le Pen's victory.
• The behaviour of Melenchon's voters may be key owing to the sheer size of his electoral base. The left-wing politician only urged his supporters not to vote for Le Pen in the runoff, noting that she deserves "not a single vote."
• In 2017 first-round Melenchon voters overwhelmingly backed Macron in the runoff but some of them may find it harder to swallow this time around, with Macron facing the challenge of persuading an anti-establishment electorate to back a sitting president.
• The only major candidate to back Le Pen ahead of the second round was far-right Eric Zemmour, although his own result was rather unimpressive.
• Polls taken on Sunday suggest that Macron is heading for the runoff with a marginal edge over Le Pen, with 51%-54% (depending on the pollster) of respondents intending to choose him in the second round.