French voters yesterday flocked to the polls under heavy security in the first round of a highly unpredictable presidential election seen as vital for the future of the EU.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are the favorites to progress to a run-off on May 7, but the race is too close to call in a deeply divided country.
Le Pen, the 48-year-old leader of the anti-immigration National Front (FN), hopes to capitalize on security fears that were catapulted to the fore of the campaign after the fatal shooting on Thursday of a policeman on Paris’s Champs Elysees avenue claimed by the Islamic State group.
Aiming to ride a wave of populism that carried US President Donald Trump to the White House and led Britain to vote for Brexit, Le Pen wants France to abandon the euro and also intends to call a referendum on withdrawing from the EU.
Observers predict a Le Pen victory could be a fatal blow for the EU, already weakened by Britain’s Brexit vote to leave.
Macron, 39, is seeking to become France’s youngest-ever president and has campaigned on a strongly pro-EU and pro-business platform.
Riding the crest of a worldwide shift away from established political parties, the former banker and French minister for economy formed his own movement, en marche (on the move), that he says is “neither to the left nor to the right.”
However, polls show scandal-tainted conservative candidate Francois Fillon, a former French prime minister, and hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon are also in with a fighting chance of finishing first or second in order to reach the all-important second round.
Le Pen cast her ballot in Henin-Beaumont, a former coal mining town in northern France that has an FN mayor.
Macron voted in the chic northern seaside resort of Le Touquet with wife, Brigitte, his former high-school teacher who is 25 years his senior.
Fillon and Melenchon both voted in Paris.
At midday, turnout on a bright spring day was up slightly compared with the same time in 2012 — when a total 79.48 percent of the electorate cast ballots — seemingly defying forecasts of a record low participation rate.
Nearly 47 million people are eligible to vote in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy.
In the wake of the policeman’s killing on Thursday, 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers have been deployed around France to protect voters.
The terror attack was the latest in a bloody series that have cost more than 230 lives since 2015.
Analysts were divided over whether the attack would sway voters in a country that has begun to take the threat from extremist groups in its stride.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Le Pen called for France to “immediately” take back control of its borders from the EU and deport all foreigners on a terror watch list.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique