Macron leads Le Pen in French election battle

French President Emmanuel Macron leads far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's elections Sunday by a larger than expected margin, with the rivals now set to battle for the presidency in a run-off later this month, projections showed.

Macron scored 28.1-29.7% in the first round and Le Pen 23.3-24.7%, with the top two candidates going through to the second round run off on April 24, according to projections by polling firms for French television channels based on a sample of votes.

The performance by Macron appears to be stronger than predicted by opinion polls in the run-up to the vote.


Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon was predicted to come third with 19.8-20.8% and extreme-right pundit Eric Zemmour on 6.8-7% with candidates of the traditional left and right trailing far behind.

Valerie Pecresse from the right-wing Republicans was on 4.3-5%, in a disastrous performance by the party of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, the projections showed.

Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo was projected to face electoral doom with a score of just 1.8-2.0 percent. Hidalgo Macron for the runoff vote.

The final-round duel between Macron and Le Pen is however set to be far tighter than the run-off between them in 2017, when the current president thrashed Le Pen with 66% of the vote.