France to vote in presidential elections today

Voters in France will go to the polls on Sunday, April 23, to choose the country's next president in a two-step process.

Some 67,000 polling stations will open at 8 a.m.(small and medium-sized polling stations will be open one hour longer than in past elections), monitored by more than 50,000 police officers, Censor.NET reports citing Interfax-Ukraina.

On March 18, 2017, the French Constitutional Council published the names of 11 candidates who received 500 valid sponsorships, with the order of the list determined by drawing lots.

According to the polls, there are five favorites (Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, François Fillon, Benoit Hamon, and Jean-Luc Melenchon) in France's presidential election on April 23 to replace unpopular François Hollande.

An Ifop-Fiducial poll released on April 21 showed that Macron would win the first round with 24.5% of the votes, followed by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-establishment National Front party, with 22.5%. Conservative François Fillon is third (19.5%), followed by Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon (18.5%) and radical Socialist Benoît Hamon (7%).

The зresident of the French Republic is elected to a five-year term. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the top two winners in the first round will compete in a run-off on May 7.