France Votes for Presidential Finalists After Tight Campaign
- Four leading candidates offer radically different visions
- Top two of those will compete in a runoff vote on May 7
Le Pen, Macron to Faceoff in Presidential Runoff
French voters headed to the polls Sunday to select two candidates for the presidential runoff, an election that will determine how far the populist wave can go in Europe.
After a campaign that has remade the nation’s political landscape, four candidates with radically different visions are in a position to qualify for the next round. They are Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader who wants to pull France out of Europe’s single currency; Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, who wants to remake the rules governing monetary union; Francois Fillon, the Republican former prime minister who proposes tough economic reforms; and Emmanuel Macron, a centrist pro-European contesting his first-ever election.