Image source, Getty Images

Most Covid restrictions were lifted in France last month, and government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced before the vote that anyone who had Covid was still allowed to vote.

He did make clear people had to use common sense and act responsibly.

There's no need to show a Covid pass or a recovery certificate, and social distancing is not compulsory either.

Masks and hand sanitisers have been made available at polling stations. And anyone who's Covid positive has been strongly advised to wear a mask.

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Paris

This has become a vote all about spiraling bills and rising prices. The phrase on voter’s lips is pouvoir d’achat, which translates as spending power but most will understand as the cost of living.

Petrol prices have soared beyond €2 ($2.18; £1.67) a litre, annual inflation is up by 4.5% but fresh food prices are higher than that, and then energy bills are up by at least 30%.

Most countries are feeling the pinch, but it’s feeding through to the ballot box here. Pay packets and basic pensions are not keeping pace with prices.

Naturally it’s hitting lower income voters most, as well as under-35s. Health is another core issue, particularly difficulties within the system as a result of the Covid pandemic. Voters are also exercised about security, pensions, immigration and the environment.

All 12 candidates have tailored their policies to the cost of living crunch. Some have offered steep increases in basic income, or in Marine Le Pen’s case waiving income tax for under-30s.

Alexandra Fouché
Reporting from London

Image source, Amélie Mallet

Voting is not happening in France alone - there are about 2.5 million French people living abroad and they are also taking part in the election.

I am one of them and earlier I went to vote at the lycée in the north-west London suburb of Wembley - one of several French high schools in London - which serves as a voting centre.

It seemed less busy than five years ago for the last election, but many people are currently away for the Easter holidays (and may have arranged to vote by proxy - more than a million people had registered to do so by early April, external).

The centre was well organised and people were getting through quickly. So it's hard to say whether this was because of a low turnout or just down to efficient organisation on the day.

These were the views of some voters leaving a polling station at a primary school in the centre of the capital.

Paul Kirby
BBC News Online Europe editor, Paris

After nine hours of voting, election officials have revealed that turnout is 65%, that's well down on recent elections. Five years ago it was 69.42%.

We already had a sense of a low turnout earlier, when turnout was given as 25.48%, the lowest since 2002. Some areas including Corsica and parts of Paris are reporting very low turnouts little higher than 50%.

It's not been low across the country. Areas including in the Loire valley and the Dordogne are well over 70% - and we've been getting reports of traffic jams in some of the big cities.

French election turnouts are traditionally high: the first-round turnout in 2017 was 77,77%.

One reason for the lower turnout is that the campaign kicked in very late, partly because of the Covid pandemic and more recently the Russian war in Ukraine. But also there's a feeling of widespread apathy, with voters telling us anecdotally that they aren't very impressed by any of the candidates.

And bear in mind that one opinion poll suggested 37% of voters were undecided less than a week before the election.

Hélène Daouphars
Reporting from Clichy

Hassiba Lazizi, a retiree in her 60s, is worried about the cost of living. She lives in social housing in Clichy, north-west of Paris, and has a small pension. How she will afford her bills over the next few months is a worry.

One thing is for sure - she won’t vote for Macron.

"He is the president of the rich. Why help the rich when they already have so much money?" she says.

When asked if Marine Le Pen is an option for her, she says she doesn't trust her.

"She said so many bad things about us, the immigrants, in the past. But what would France be without us?" she says.

Ourdia, who runs a coffee shop in Clichy, says this time around campaigning never really got going.

"It was completely overshadowed by Covid and the war in Ukraine, there were not many prominent debates either. It fell a bit flat."

Her colleague Wajdi interjects to say he only realised the elections were happening yesterday - the conflict in Ukraine had taken up most of his attention over the past few weeks.

Of the 12 candidates on ballot papers today, these are the six main challengers.

There has been a lot of coverage of Macron and Le Pen as the incumbent and main challenger respectively.

But the field also includes centre-right Pécresse, strongly left-wing Mélenchon, far-right Zemmour and Jadot for the Greens.

Image source, Reuters

Voters have 12 candidates to choose from today - including a few regulars who have little chance of getting anywhere near the presidency. They include:

Nathalie Arthaud: A schoolteacher from outside Paris, she has stood twice for president for the far-left Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' struggle) party, but has not yet attracted more than 1% of the vote. While opposed to Russia's "monstrous" invasion of Ukraine, she has little time for Nato either.

Jean Lassalle: Closer to the centre of French politics than other candidates but by no means a moderate, he came from a family of shepherds in the Pyrenees mountains to become France's youngest mayor in 1977. As leader of Résistons! (Resist), he has championed France's yellow-vest anti-Macron protesters by wearing a gilet jaune in parliament and he has called for citizens' initiative referendums, renegotiating the EU treaties and pulling out of Nato.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: A libertarian who left the mainstream right to found the Debout la France (France Arise) party, he shares some policies and views with fa-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen.

Image source, Getty Images

A month ago, Marine Le Pen was trailing Emmanuel Macron by 10 points and fighting for a place in the second round.

Now she's seen as the clear favourite to challenge him for the presidency. If she does make it through to the 24 April run-off, opinion polls suggest for the first time that a Le Pen victory is within the margin of error.

France's far-right leader has worked hard over the past five years to win votes, softening her rhetoric and presenting a more moderate, "electable" image.

She still promises strict limits on immigration, a "French-first" policy when it comes to housing, jobs and benefits, and a ban on the Muslim headscarf in public places. But she has dropped her plan to leave the EU, and has emphasised her personal life as a single mother who breeds kittens.

It has helped win over some traditional right-wing voters who once saw her as too extreme and her party tainted with the toxic attitudes of its past.

Read more - Far-right Le Pen closes in on Macron ahead of vote

Paul Kirby
BBC News Online Europe editor, Paris

The final opinion polls before voting all told a story of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen gaining support and Emmanuel Macron falling back. The incumbent president still had the lead but the boost he had from his diplomatic efforts at the start of the Russian war appeared to have evaporated.

An Elabe poll put him on 26%, with Marine Le Pen on 25% and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 17.5% - and no other candidate above 10%. Another poll gave Mr Macron a 3.5-point lead.

But what the Elabe survey also suggested was that if the top two went through to the run-off, there would be just two points between them: Macron on 51% and Le Pen on 49%.

Other polls suggest the gap may be broader, but when you take into account the margin of error, they all paint a picture of a race that is close to becoming neck and neck, unlike the run-off in 2017, when Mr Macron won two-thirds of the vote.

Today's vote is the first round of voting. If no candidate wins 50% of the vote - and polls suggest they won't - then the two candidates with most votes advance to the second round in two weeks' time.

Image source, Reuters

Bienvenue to our live coverage of the first round of the French presidential election.

Nearly 50 million people are eligible to elect a new president for the country. They have to decide which two out of a field of 12 candidates will go through to the second round on 24 April.

It is expected to be a close contest between the two front-runners - President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

At midday, turnout was about 25%, down slightly from the same point in the last poll in 2017.

There is decent spring weather over most of the country and queues outside polling stations, correspondents say.