The final polls in the French 2017 presidential race have now closed, and the count is well underway. Predictions based on early day returns show a strong victory for centrist, globalist challenger Emmanuel Macron.
Official figures from the French ministry of the interior put the predicted outcome at 65 per cent for Emmanuel Macron, and 35 per cent for Marine Le Pen.
The preliminary results are somewhat different to a British exit poll, where pollsters ask voters leaving voting stations how they cast their ballots. In France, preliminary results are calculated on actual samples of votes taken early in the day, potentially giving much more accurate representations of how the count will pan out.
French predictions of this type have been highly accurate in the past, and while this result seems to confirm that Emmanuel Macron will be the next president of France, there are a few more hours of vote counting ahead.
One noted trend in this vote is the high proportion of registered voters choosing to abstain, with 25 per cent not voting at all. This is a 50-year high — a result that perhaps reflects the disappointment of some French voters of having two candidates to pick from hailing from non-mainstream parties.
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