PARIS (AP) – Election stations opened Saturday in French overseas territories that are voting first in France’s unpredictable presidential election – one day earlier than on the mainland.
Opinion polls showed a tight race among four top contenders vying for the two places in the May 7 runoff which will decide who becomes the next head of state. But the polls also showed the future of France was largely in the hands of the one out of three voters who were undecided – as a deadly attack on the Champs-Elysees avenue clouded the last days of campaigning.
Political campaigning was banned from Saturday across France, and online, as polling centers opened in the far-flung Atlantic Ocean territories of Saint Pierre and Miquelon and French Guiana, as well as in the Caribbean’s Guadeloupe and elsewhere.
Unemployment and the economy topped voters’ concerns as first-round ballots are cast for one of 11 candidates in the most nail-biting French elections in generations. Security was also a prominent concern after a wave of extremist attacks on French soil, including Thursday’s attack by a gunman who fatally shot a police officer in Paris before being killed by security forces.
Polls suggested far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead.