PARIS, France
Flash opinion polls conducted in the wake of first-round voting in France's presidential election Sunday forecast that Emmanuel Macron will secure a new five-year term in the second-round run-off on April 24 against far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
The contest will be a rematch
of the 2017 fight that Macron, a former investment banker who ran a reformist
campaign from the centre, won handily at 66 percent compared with 34 percent
for Le Pen.
But the result will be much
closer this year, surveys suggest, and much will hinge on campaign arguments
over the next two weeks highlighted by a prime-time television debate between
the two candidates on April 20.
An Ifop-Fiducial poll
conducted after polls closed on Sunday showed Macron with just a slight edge of
51 percent in the run-off compared to Le Pen's 49 percent, with a margin of
error of three percentage points.
Separate polls by Ipsos-Sopra
Steria as well as OpinionWay both put Macron at 54 percent against 46 percent
for Le Pen.
Macron came out on top in the
first round on Sunday, with a projected score of 28.6 to 29.7 percent, followed
by Le Pen on 23.5 to 24.7 percent, using projections by polling firms based on
samples from voting stations.
Final results will be
published by the Interior Ministry in the coming hours.
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