Marine le pen
Brazil's leftist ex-president Lula supports Macron in French vote
Lula said he now believes Macron 'is the one who best embodies democratic and humanist values' against his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in Sunday's run-off.
The televised debate on Wednesday evening - a pivotal moment ahead of Sunday's run-off vote - was marked by a highly aggressive performance by Macron, who lost no opportunity to attack his opponent throughout the marathon three-hour session.
President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen both have low-key meetings Monday, pacing themselves until Wednesday's face-off, which could turn out to be the key to the campaign.
The first-round results marked a boost for the traditional right-wing The Republicans as well as the Socialist Party, who have been squeezed after the centrist Macron surged into power in 2017 with his brand-new Republic on the Move party.
Le Pen was placed under formal investigation in March on suspicion of disseminating violent images.
Marine Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election but was soundly beaten by centrist Emmanuel Macron in the run-off.
Emmanuel Macron’s centre-right ally Francois Bayrou signalled he was not happy with the list of candidates.
With virtually all votes counted, Macron had topped 66% against just under 34% for Le Pen - a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had suggested.
Emmanuel Macron was elected French president with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union.
With virtually all votes counted, Macron had topped 66% against just under 34% for Le Pen - a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points.
Opinion polls predicted that the 39-year-old former economy minister Emmanuel Macron would win the five-year presidency.
The French Independent centrist is seen getting 62% of the votes in the second round compared to 38% for Le Pen, an increase of three points for the centrist candidate.
Emmanuel Macron’s party has previously complained that his campaign had been the target of ‘fake news’ put out by Russian media.
In a final put-down, when Le Pen attempted to interrupt his summing-up, Macron told Le Pen: “You stay on TV. I want to be president of the country.”
Opinion polls showed Emmanuel Macron, 39, maintaining a strong lead of 20 percentage points over the National Front's Marine Le Pen.
Opinion polls still show Macron, 39, holding a strong lead of 20 points over the National Front’s Le Pen with just four days to go to the final vote.
Two opinion polls showed Macron winning what is widely seen as France’s most important election in decades with between 59 & 61% of the vote.
Polls predict that Macron, a former economy minister, will win the 7 May run-off with about 59-60%.
According to the Ifop poll, 45% of voters believe the two finalists would not put an end to unemployment and 36% say neither candidate is able to protect France from attacks.