French presidential runoff kicks off between Macron, Le Pen

PARIS -- The 2022 French presidential runoff kicked off at 8 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Sunday in Metropolitan France between incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and candidate Marine Le Pen.

Most polling stations in Metropolitan France are set to close at 7 pm local time (1700 GMT) or one hour later in larger cities such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux.

Eligible voters in French overseas territories already cast their ballots on Saturday.

After a televised debate on April 20, almost all opinion polls predicted that Macron would lead this presidential runoff.

But local media are worried that a low turnout rate, especially during this spring holiday period, could reverse the predictions, as the abstention rate of the first round of voting reached 26.31 percent.

Most of the unsuccessful candidates of the first round have clearly voiced their support for Macron, while far-left wing party Unsubmissive France leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, reaching the third place, instead of calling on his supporters to vote for Macron, asked his supporters not to "give a vote" to Le Pen.

Asked about why the turnout is relatively low on Sunday morning, a staff of a voting station in Clichy told Xinhua: "First, they don't want to vote for Le Pen or Macron at all. The second reason is that it is school holidays now."

"And there are other people who say 'oh, anyway we know that it's Macron who will win, so it's not worth it (to vote)'," he added, without giving his name.

Calling himself an "old European," he said that people from "the part of France" that feels excluded and not French anymore would vote for Le Pen.

"They don't feel French any more," he said, referring to people from small towns and cities. "They no longer have doctors, they no longer have public services and therefore they feel excluded. So they go for Le Pen."

By noon, the Ministry of Interior published a turnout rate of 26.41 percent, slightly higher than during the first round. However, the mid-day turnout rate is still much lower than that of the second round of the 2017 presidential election, which stood at 28.23 percent.

At 8 p.m. local time (1800 GMT), highly accurate first estimations and exit polls will be allowed for the public.

According to the results of the first round of voting published by France's Constitutional Council, Macron won 27.85 percent of valid ballots, and Le Pen, 23.15 percent.

In 2017, Macron and Le Pen also competed for the French presidency in a runoff vote, during which Macron was elected president with 66.10 percent of the votes.