Just in: Voting starts in French Presidential election

France began voting Sunday in the first round of the most unpredictable presidential election in decades, with the outcome seen as crucial for the future of the beleaguered European Union.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are the favourites to progress to a run-off on May 7 but polls have shown the race is so tight that four candidates have a strong chance of reaching the second round.

“The Government has mobilised more than 50,000 police and gendarmes to protect 70,000 polling stations, with an additional 7,000 soldiers on patrol.” ABC news reports

Security was a prominent issue after a wave of extremist attacks on French soil, including a gunman who killed a Paris police officer Thursday night before being shot dead by security forces.

The gunman carried a note praising the Islamic State group.

French poll could reshape the West

France’s final presidential campaign is likely to be fought between a far-right firebrand who’s courted Vladimir Putin and an independent centrist who has never run for office. Don’t care? Well, you should, and here’s why.
The outcome will be anxiously monitored around the world as a sign of whether the populist tide that saw Britain vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election in the United States is still rising, or starting to ebb.

But the polls also said that decision was largely in the hands of the one-in-three French voters who were still undecided.

France’s 10 per cent unemployment, its lacklustre economy and security issues topped voters’ concerns.

Polls suggested that outsiders far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead.

However, conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister whose campaign was initially derailed by corruption allegations that his wife was paid for no-show work as his aide, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.