Image source, Reuters

Conservative candidate Valerie Pécresse has just been speaking and has urged voters to pick Emmanuel Macron in the second round. She said the far right had never been closer to power but that the French people "had to say no to extremism", she said.

"[Le Pen's] historical proximity with Vladimir Putin discredits her from defending the interests of our country in these tragic times. Her election would mean that France would become irrelevant on the European and international scenes," Pécresse said.

Likewise, Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo - who has also been trounced in the polls - has told her followers to vote Macron in the second round.

"So that France does not fall into hatred of all against all, I solemnly call on you to vote on 24 April against the far-right of Marine Le Pen," she said.

Communist Party Fabien Roussel and the Greens' Yannick Jadot also asked their followers to vote for Macron in the second round to keep the far right out of power.

However all those parties together got only about 12% of the vote.

Nick Beake
Reporting from Paris

Image source, EPA

Cheers erupted just after 20:00 when the exit poll appeared on the screen. If that’s any indication, people here feel Le Pen has done very well.

The reason being that this is the highest score she has achieved in the three presidential campaigns she has been involved in.

In the last five minutes we've seen selfies. There's champagne. Also spin. Some of the spin doctors here are going around saying, this is much better than we expected.

There is certainly optimism here and they feel momentum is on their side as they press on to the second round.

Jessica Parker
Reporting from Paris

Image source, EPA

Huge cheers erupted here at the election night HQ of Emmanuel Macron.

French and EU flags waved wildly amongst supporters in this vast conference hall. Their man has made it through, as expected.

Nerves had been jangling tonight with fears the first-round vote could prove wafer-thin close. Supporters tell us they’re pleased with the lead he’s managed but also that the incumbent will now need to be more present on the campaign trail.

There’s work to do but overall tonight, a sense of relief.

Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour, with 7.2% of votes (according to Franceinfo's exit poll), did not do as well as expected.

Conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse, with only 5% of the votes, has registered the worst score for a mainstream party of the right in decades, Franceinfo reports.

The same goes for centre-left Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo, who received 2.1% of the votes.

The candidate for the Greens, Yannick Jadot, did marginally better than those two but still fared worse than expected with 4.4% of the votes.

Different exit polls have slightly different figures, but they all clearly show that incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen are through to the second round, as had been widely predicted by opinion polls throughout the campaign.

This means the second round is between the same two candidates as at the last presidential election in 2017.

In third place was hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had about 20% of the votes.

And the first exit polls are in: they show Emmanuel Macron garnered 28.1% of the votes in the first round of voting, while rival Marine Le Pen received 23.3% of the votes.

It's 20:00 in France, which means voting has now ended. The first exit polls are due shortly. We'll bring you the latest updates as we get them.

We're into the last minutes of this first round of France's presidential election. At 19:00 BST (20:00 local) voting will end in major French cities - they closed an hour ago in other areas.

Shortly afterwards we're expecting exit polls that should give a sense of who will go through to the second round - and just how close the votes are.

We're reporting live this evening from the Macron and Mélenchon headquarters as well as that of Le Pen. This is the scene at the Macron HQ at Porte de Versailles. The phrase Nous Tous - All of us - is emblazoned over the stage. Mr Macron has not yet arrived.

There's also growing suspense at far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon's campaign HQ,

He polled 19.6% five years ago. How close can he get this time?

Our correspondent managed to grab a few words with one of his party's MPs, Eric Cocquerel, as he arrived. "I feel there's a sense of hope rising in this country. Whether that's enough to get into the second round - I don't know at this point."

Tonight's result could open path to a political earthquakepublished at 18:40 British Summer Time 10 April 2022

18:40 BST 10 April 2022

Hugh Schofield
Reporting from Paris

Image source, Reuters

The ritual declaration "a voté" (meaning “has voted") has been uttered many millions of times today by polling officials across France, as the country sets about choosing its next head of state.

All eyes this evening will be on the incumbent Macron and his main challenger Le Pen - and in probable third place, the far-left-winger Mélenchon.

In Paris, finding Le Pen voters is not so easy. She's never done well in the capital. But Paris is not France, and one theme that's emerged in this campaign is a growing political divergence between the metropolis and the provinces.

Now in her third race for the presidency, Le Pen has never been as well placed in the polls. But if, as expected, she gets through to the second round again against Macron, then a whole new campaign opens up from this evening. And there'll be dire warnings aplenty of the political earthquake, were she actually to be elected on 24 April.

There's a mood of expectation at Marine Le Pen's campaign headquarters. Her supporters are looking happy and it's buzzing with journalists

There are hundreds of reporters but plenty of champagne on ice as well. This time Marine Le Pen's supporters think they're heading not just for the second round but for the presidency too.

Le Pen has already arrived at Le Pavillon Chesnaie du Roy in Paris but we won't hear from her until we know the exit polls.

Image source, bb

Can hard-left Mélenchon shake things up?published at 18:20 British Summer Time 10 April 2022

18:20 BST 10 April 2022

Anna Holligan
Reporting from Paris

Image source, Getty Images

At 70 Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the oldest candidate, but he's also the most tech savvy and has succeeded in connecting with young voters.

At rallies he's used holograms to project 3D images of himself on stage. There was also a mini hologram filter he launched on Instagram and Twitter to encourage first time voters to take part.

Mélenchon is a socialist who has promised to lower the age of retirement, raise the minimum wage, tax the wealthy and freeze food and fuel prices. This appeals to his core, who are young, disillusioned, disenchanted and anti-elitist.

He also says he would pull France out of Nato and block any future EU free trade deals.

He spent the campaign urging voters to plough all their hope into him and the chance of blocking the almost inevitable Le Pen-Macron run-off. But if he doesn’t make it through, who would his supporters choose?

Polls suggest many of them would vote for Le Pen – something unthinkable a few years ago. Not because of her anti-immigration policies. But because some are so frustrated by the current president's perceived failures, they may bend right to the other end of the political spectrum in protest.

As we head towards the first snapshot of who has done well in the first round of voting, here's a look at how the popularity of the candidates changed in the run-up to voting:

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Paris

Image source, Getty Images

The big moment at the end of the first round comes in just under an hour at 20:00 (19:00 UK time) when the big TV channels give the first indication of which two candidates will contest the second round run-off on 24 April.

We'll also find out how the other 10 candidates have fared and which of them is likely to fall below 5% of the vote and end up footing their campaign bill.

In UK elections, the BBC carries out surveys of thousands of voters as they leave polling stations all over the country. But in France it's more of a real snapshot of what the result will be.

One of the main TV networks, TF1, has explained how its pollster, Ifop, selects 260 polling stations out of 70,000 across France and uses a sample of votes that are already counted. That way we'll have a real snapshot of the election.

"We're confident in the result we get - we get a rather exceptional level of reliability," says François Kraus of Ifop.

In just over an hour we'll get exit polls from the first round of the French election. That should give us a clear indication of which two candidates will go into the second round on 24 April.

This is what we know so far:

• All 12 candidates have voted. The three biggest candidates, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon all voted outside Paris while several others voted in the capital
• Turnout at 17:00 (16:00 UK time) was 65% - well down on the last presidential election in 2017, but not as low as some predicted. Some areas of Paris and the island of Corsica are seeing the lowest turnouts
• Voting finishes in many areas of France in a few minutes, but it'll carry on in the big cities like Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse and Caen for another hour after that.

Image source, Reuters

• Her family has been synonymous with the far right in France for decades
• Before politics, she trained as a lawyer and defended illegal immigrants facing deportation
• A political player in France for years, her anti-immigration message has remained consistent but she has dropped her plan to leave the EU
• In recent years, she has tried to soften her party's image and make its message more mainstream
• This is her third - and she has said possibly last, if she loses - bid for the presidency

He says his biggest achievements have been lower unemployment and taxes, as well as higher spending for security.

He made it easier for companies to fire workers and introduced tough security laws to tackle terrorism.

But he was forced to scrap a proposed fuel tax in 2018 after weeks of unrest stoked by yellow-vest protesters, known as gilets jaunes.

Other reforms, including a promise to bring the jobless rate down from more than 10% to 7% by 2022, were hit by the Covid pandemic, although unemployment is currently down to 7.4%.

He has had to rethink a controversial plan to make a back-to-work benefit for the unemployed called RSA conditional on 15-20 hours of work a week.

Read more on what he is proposing to do if he is re-elected here.

Image source, Reuters

• Became the youngest president in French history in 2017 at the age of 39
• A former investment banker and economy minister who had never been elected an MP
• Married to his former drama teacher, Brigitte, who is 24 years older than him
• Dogged by a perception he is out of touch with ordinary people
• Pushed through controversial economic reforms but faced violent protests over a proposed fuel tax

Jessica Parker
Reporting from Marché des Batignolles in Paris

Meat, fish, cheese and flowers are all on sale an the indoor market at Marché des Batignolles, a relatively wealthy neighbourhood in north-west Paris.

What’s most striking talking to people here is the apathy. Most we speak to are going to the polls with little enthusiasm, if at all. Cheese-seller Jean Chaudemanche says he’s considering voting “blank”. That means he won’t vote for anyone this time, and maybe in the second round too.

Blank voting isn't the same as spoiling your vote but casting either an empty envelope in the ballot box or an unmarked ballot is still an act of protest.

Chaudemanche complains he doesn’t feel represented and sees the candidates as mere “managers” who lack statesmanship.

Anne Rubie, who has just bought some fish, is voting Green this time but says she will vote blank if it's a Macron v Le Pen run-off.

She doesn’t want Marine Le Pen to win but she doesn’t want to help Emmanuel Macron either in a run-off that would be the same as 2017. “Nothing changes,” she laments.

Macron alongside his wife Brigitte, and his main challenger Marine Le Pen, were among the presidential hopefuls pictured at polling stations around the country.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters