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Le Pen led the polls for much of the campaign and is seen as the anti-mass migration, anti-Islamisation candidate. The populist politician, who serves in the European Parliament as an MEP, has sworn to hold a referendum to get France out of the EU, secure French borders and restore order to a country plagued by radical Islamic terrorism and disorder in areas like the Paris district of Seine-Saint-Denis.

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As French Election Nears, Le Pen Targets Voters Her Party Once Repelled

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As French Election Nears, Le Pen Targets Voters Her Party Once Repelled

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A traditional distaste for the far right appeared to be softening during this campaign. Uncertainties and a sense that mainstream parties have failed to offer solutions to the country’s economic anemia have left the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, better positioned than at any other time in its 45-year history.

-matt sparks

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/world/europe/france-election-coverage.html?_r=1

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On Sunday, the pro-European centrist Macron took first place with 24.01% of the first-round voting, while Le Pen came second on 21.30%, according to final results.
~Zoie Myers
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/europe/france-marine-le-pen-interview/

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Mr. Macron abandoned traditional parties a year ago to form his own movement with an eclectic blend of policies. - Jaci Lugo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen-france-election.html?_r=0

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2017/04/19/a-youth-revolt-in-france-boosts-the-far-right/?utm_term=.3f593783ae0a
She wants nothing more than a better France.
- Brandon M. Stevens

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If Marine Le Pen is elected she follow up on her proposal to leave the european union which would cost the country $190 Billion dollars
-Nic S.

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In 2016, Marie Le Pen was ranked as second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament by Politico. 

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In 2016, Marie Le Pen was ranked as second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament by Politico. 

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/can-le-pen-beat-macron-french-election-despite-losing-first/

- Courtney Lawson.

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Ms. Le Pen sought to sanitize the image of the National Front and distance the party from the uglier associations of Europe’s far right. The efforts seemed to have paid off, but the news that two of her associates had longtime links to Nazi sympathizers and the party’s campaign finance scandals raised new doubts.

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Le Pen represents those that feel threatened by immigrants moving to Europe. On the other hand, Macron represents those who believe that looking beyond the country's borders will benefit them. - Emily Saunders
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen-france-election.html?_r=0

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She is currently the #2 Politician Born in France
-Seth

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Macron supports open borders, globalization, freedom of religion, and tolerance. -Nevaeh Clark-

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Le Pen looks to tighten France's borders by cutting down immigration from 200,000 to 10,000. -Mac Spears
https://www.good.is/articles/french-presidential-election-affect-world

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She wants to lower retirement age to 60 and 35-hour work week assured. Ezra

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This article places information about Emmanuel Macron and why some are unsure about why to vote for him. ~Chloe Klepatzki

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/26/death-of-the-french-left-why-voters-are-hesitating-over-macron

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Mr. Macron was also a business man, similar to President Trump.

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power to the people

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Mr. Emmanuel Macron can be seen as similar to President Donald Trump, for Mr. Macron was a former banker and has never held a political position. Similar to Trump as he was a businessman.

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PARIS - In France's most consequential election in recent history, voters on Sunday chose Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen to go to a runoff to determine the next president, official returns showed. One is a political novice, the other a far-right firebrand - both outsiders, but with starkly different visions for the country.

The result was a full-throated rebuke of France's traditional mainstream parties, setting the country on an uncertain path in an election that could also decide the future of the European Union.

It is the first time in the nearly 59-year history of France's Fifth Republic that both of the final candidates are from outside the traditional left-right party structure. Together, they drew less than half the total votes cast in a highly fractured election.

Even before the official tallies were announced, the political establishment was rallying behind Mr. Macron, warning of the dangers of a victory by Ms. Le Pen's far-right National Front, though few analysts give her much of a chance of winning the May 7 runoff.

Mr. Macron, a former investment banker, abandoned traditional parties a year ago to form his own movement with an eclectic blend of left and right policies. He campaigned on a pro-European Union platform, coupled with calls to overhaul the rules governing the French economy.

"The French people have decided to put me at the top in the first round of the vote," Mr. Macron told jubilant supporters at a rally in Paris. "I'm aware of the honor and the responsibility that rest on my shoulders."

Ms. Le Pen's success was a victory for people who oppose the European Union and for those who want to see more "France first" policies to restrict immigration, protect French industry and limit public signs of Muslim faith, including the wearing of head scarves.

"The great debate will finally take place," Ms. Le Pen said on Twitter. "French citizens need to seize this historic opportunity."

Political experts said the vote showed a new, profound cleavage in French politics around globalization, as well as France's relationship with the European Union.

"Fundamentally, this shows that France is going through deep political tensions: clashes over the global economy, the integration of France into the global economy and into Europe," said Bruno Cautrès, a political analyst and public opinion specialist at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, the institute of political studies in Paris.

It is not that the left-right divide no longer matters - after all, voters gave roughly 40 percent of the vote to various versions of the traditional left and right - but that it is now complicated by the crosscutting politics of globalization versus anti-globalization.

With 97 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Macron had 23.9 percent, Ms. Le Pen had 21.5 percent, the mainstream right candidate François Fillon had nearly 20 percent, and the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon had 19.6 percent.

When Ms. Le Pen spoke to supporters in the small town of Hénin-Beaumont in northern France, although the results were not yet definitive, she sounded victorious.

She not only made it to the second round for the first time, but also got a higher percentage of votes than she did in 2012, and a higher percentage than her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, did in 2002, when he made it to the second round as the National Front candidate and faced Jacques Chirac.

Ms. Le Pen said the outcome was "an act of French pride, that of a people who are raising up their heads, that of a people sure of their values and confident of the future."

That future would be a perilous one under the National Front, others warned. Bernard Cazeneuve, the sitting Socialist prime minister, called Ms. Le Pen's project "dangerous and sectarian" and said it would "impoverish, isolate and divide" the country.

"It will inevitably lead to the end of Europe and of the euro, and, eventually, to France's relegation," he said. "The National Front cannot be the future of our country."

For now, voters narrowly embraced Mr. Macron's centrist calls for change over more strident appeals from the far left and the far right for France to fortify itself against immigration and globalization.

His success also suggests that despite multiple terrorist attacks in France recently, a message of outreach to immigrants and acceptance of Muslims, as well as of ethnic diversity, has some currency. Ms. Le Pen campaigned stridently against Muslims and immigration, linking both to security threats, and she may have benefited from a final surge of support after a terror ist attack in Paris on Thursday.

In contrast, Mr. Macron, in his address to supporters as the returns were still being tabulated Sunday night, emphasized that he wanted to be the president of all of France. He promised "to bring together the French people," clearly recognizing that if he wins the runoff, as is expected, he will have to lead a politically fractured country.

Four candidates with markedly different views came within a few points of one another in the vote on Sunday, suggesting that the fight about what vision of France will dominate the future is far from over.

Both Mr. Macron's supporters and those of Ms. Le Pen were cheering madly at their respective candidates' headquarters, with Ms. Le Pen's loyalists dancing in the street outside the place where she was speaking in Hénin-Beaumont.

The two finalists could hardly be more different on the big questions facing France: globalization, immigration and French identity. Beyond that, they represent completely different faces of France.

Ms. Le Pen's voters want a government that protects them from the vicissitudes of the marketplace and closes its borders to outsiders, re-establishing the frontiers that have been largely erased by the European Union.

Although Ms. Le Pen has younger, more high-tech voters, she also represents the France that feels left behind: the workers whose jobs have moved to cheaper countries, such as those in Eastern Europe and Asia.

She represents young people who have to go to work early in life to help support their families, and who do not have the advanced degrees that afford them a good income. And she represents people who feel threatened by the immigrants thronging to Europe.

" Marine will fight for the young people - for their future, for their freedom, for their job, for their family," said Aurore Lahondes, a resident of the central-west city of Angers. She called Mr. Macron, a onetime investment banker at Rothschild & Company, "the candidate who is the most far away from the people."

"He is the candidate of the financial part of the world," Ms. Lahondes, 19, said in an interview at a bar that had been rented out by the local National Front federation. "He is the candidate of the European Union."

Mr. Macron represents a more educated and cosmopolitan France. His voters are not all privileged by any means, but they believe that looking beyond the country's borders will enrich them in every way, economically and culturally. Mr. Macron's challenge will be to convince more of the French that globalism has as many rewards as it does costs.

"Globalism has positive effects, but it also increases precariousness and inequalities," said Thomas Guénolé, a political-science professor at Sciences Po.

The vote on Sunday came after a bruising campaign in which the public repeatedly rejected candidates who were expected to be winners. In the mainstream right primary, the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé, was expected to handily best Mr. Fillon. Instead, Mr. Fillon trounced him.

The left suffered similar upheaval, with the expected winner of the Socialist primary, former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, losing to Benoît Hamon. Mr. Hamon floundered during the campaign and received less than 7 percent of the vote, a cratering of support for his party.

On the right, Mr. Fillon initially looked like a potential winner, but a nepotism scandal - in which he was accused of embezzling public funds by paying his wife and children to work as his assistants, although they appear to have done little work - defeated his efforts to make it to the second round.

"The obstacles put on my path were too numerous, too cruel," he said, conceding defeat Sunday night.

In the meantime, Mr. Macron appears to have been in the right place at the right time, with mainstream candidates falling on either side and a far-right candidate whom many in France cannot imagine having represent the country.

That does not mean that people favor him, but rather that he was the "least worst" vote: an especially weak position for a candidate with no real party base behind him.

"I chose a 'useful vote' for the first round, and it really breaks my heart - it's the first time I'm doing this," said Monica Craignou, 40, who works in digital development in Paris.

Others saw in Mr. Macron the possibility for France to keep up with global changes. "We need someone young," said Karine Filhoulaud, a 45-year-old web editor, who was at Mr. Macron's victory party and danced alone long after the crowds had left. "He lives the transition: the environmental one, the digital one, the societal one."

A Marine Le Pen Victory Wouldn't Necessarily Be a Win for Trump

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Marine Le Pen Will Face Emmanuel Macron in France's Second Round

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Russian Hackers Who Targeted Clinton Appear to Attack France's Macron

NEWS ANALYSIS

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NEWS ANALYSIS

'This Is Deadly Serious': French Parties Set Sights on Marine Le Pen

Opinion Editorial

Emmanuel Macron Mounts a Patriot's Challenge to Marine Le Pen

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Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen Advance in French Election

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PARIS - In France's most consequential election in recent history, voters on Sunday chose Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen to go to a runoff to determine the next president, official returns showed. One is a political novice, the other a far-right firebrand - both outsiders, but with starkly different visions for the country.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/french-presidential-election-2017-does-work-candidates/

French elections always happen on a Sunday.

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http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/04/23/four-contenders-french-presidency/

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I learned Le Pen has turbo-charged her campaign with a string of appearances and statements

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I learned Le Pen has turbo-charged her campaign with a string of appearances and statements

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http://www.firstpost.com/world/french-presidential-election-2017-emmanuel-macron-insists-nothings-won-yet-in-race-against-marine-le-pen-3404822.html

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The first round of the French presidential election will take place on Sunday, a crucial moment in what has been an unusually tight, unpredictable and complex race

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Marine le Pen wanted to give power back to the people, she also looks like Hillary - Autum

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When is the French Presidential Election 2017, how does it work and who are the candidates?

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When is the French Presidential Election 2017, how does it work and who are the candidates?

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/french-presidential-election-2017-does-work-candidates/

Of the five candidates outlined in the article, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Marcon are the two remaining candidates, and they will compete against each other in the second "round" on May 7th. Marine Le Pen is currently the leader of the Front National Party, whereas Emmanuel Marcon is a former banker and the former eminence grise to President Hollande.

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Stock markets have went up during the French election

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Marine Le Pen stated that she wants to limit immigration to keep France safer from recent terror attacks. She does not directly use Trump's ideals but very closely resembles them.
-CN

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"I am not the candidate of the National Front. I am the candidate who has been supported by the National Front," she said in an interview with the French TF1 network.

Le Pen, 48, fresh off the highest-ever voting tally for National Front party, said she stepped aside from the party leadership this week because she's as a candidate for all French citizens.

"I am a presidential candidate as of today," she said.

Observers see the move as a tactical one designed to earn her votes from people who might be disposed to vote for her but who find the fascist reputation of the National Front a step too far.

Voters snubbed the political establishment Sunday, sending Le Pen and political novice Emmanuel Macron, 39, through to the second round of the presidential election.

Macron, a pro-European centrist, took first place with 24.01% of the first-round voting, while the anti-immigrant, anti-EU Le Pen came second on 21.30%, according to final results released Monday by the French Interior Ministry.

A runoff will be held on May 7 after the two candidates emerged at the top in the first round.

Opponents have argued that Le Pen's economic and social programs would bankrupt the country, particularly if France dropped the euro as its currency, as she has threatened.

Le Pen has vowed to intensify the nationalist, anti-Islamist rhetoric that propelled her into the second round.

Sunday's first round contest was held under tight security after a terror attack in Paris Thursday night disrupted the final day of campaigning Friday. And the Paris attacks in November 2015, in which 130 people were killed, saw Hollande's popularity plunge.

Le Pen, 48, told supporters her first move as president would be to impose a temporary ban on legal immigration to France. She has also vowed to take France out of the EU.

Le Pen's advancement to the second round is not without precedent -- her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made it to a runoff against then-incumbent Jacques Chirac in 2002, only to suffer a devastating loss when anti-extremist voters rallied against the National Front leader.

For many voters, the election was about a desire for change and disenchantment with a political class.

The country suffers from high unemployment, a stagnant economy, security concerns and its citizens remain bitterly divided. The government has struggled to cope with immigration and integration.

Le Pen wants to slash legal immigration from 200,000 to 10,000 "entries" per year in France, and wants to see immigrants' access to public services limited.

Macron, 39, a former banker, has never held elected office, though he served as economy minister under Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

He attracted support from left and right with promises to boost the economy and improve security. His party, "En Marche!" which was only created in September, now has more than 200,000 members and his meetings have attracted vast crowds.

CNN's James Masters contributed to this report.

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french election: marine le pen targets swing voters - cnn.com

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French election: Le Pen says, 'I am not the candidate of the National Front'

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"I am not the candidate of the National Front. I am the candidate who has been supported by the National Front," she said in an interview with the French TF1 network. Le Pen, 48, fresh off the highest-ever voting tally for National Front party, said she stepped aside from the party leadership this week because she's as a candidate for all French citizens.

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Mr. Macron is a firm favorite, but Ms. Le Pen said she will win.

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Marine le Pen likes horses.
- Ken

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The election was historic for France, because the top two defeated the ruling Socialists and centre-right opposition Republicans. Those parties have dominated French politics for decades.

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The election was historic for France, because the top two defeated the ruling Socialists and centre-right opposition Republicans. Those parties have dominated French politics for decades.

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-Chelsea Hoffman

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The two now battling to become French president - Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen - have sharply contrasting visions for France's future.

Mr Macron, a liberal centrist, took 23.75% of votes in Sunday's first round, ahead of the nationalist Ms Le Pen on 21.53%.

Eleven candidates were in the running. The election was historic for France, because the top two defeated the ruling Socialists and centre-right opposition Republicans. Those parties have dominated French politics for decades.

Ms Le Pen's result was the best yet for her National Front (FN), once a pariah party tarnished by accusations of anti-Semitism.

But Mr Macron, with his non-party political movement En Marche (On the Move), is the firm favourite for the run-off on 7 May. He already has pledges of support from the Socialists and Republicans.
All you need to know about the French election
Marine Le Pen

She took over the FN leadership from her father in January 2011 and came third in presidential elections the following year. She brought the party big electoral gains in regional elections in late 2015.

Despite her efforts to soften the FN's image, and reach a wider electorate, opinion polls suggest she is unlikely to defeat Mr Macron.

In 2010, before being elected leader, she compared Muslims praying in the street to the Nazi German occupation.

As the election approached she told voters she would suspend all legal immigration. She also caused outrage by wrongly suggesting that France had no responsibility for the Paris round-up of 13,000 Jews deported in World War Two.
In depth: Is France's National Front leader far-right?
Ms Le Pen, 48, trained as a lawyer and formerly headed the FN's legal department. She was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 and remains an MEP, representing North-West France.

She is twice divorced with three children, and lives in the western suburbs of Paris.
What she wants:

Abandon the euro (and return to the franc), renegotiate France's EU membership, then hold a referendum

"Automatic" expulsion of illegal immigrants and cut legal immigration to 10,000 per year

"Extremist" mosques closed and priority to French nationals in social housing

Lower retirement age to 60 and 35-hour week assured

Ban wearing of "ostentatious" religious symbols such as Muslim headscarves and veils in public

Impose a 35% tax on goods from firms that relocate out of France

Emmanuel Macron

At 39, he has a real chance of becoming France's youngest-ever president.

He is not an MP and has never stood for election before, but his political rise has been meteoric.

A former investment banker, Mr Macron worked as economic adviser to President François Hollande - a Socialist - before taking up the post of economy minister in 2014.

His "Macron Law" was a controversial reform bill that allowed shops to open more often on Sundays and deregulated some sectors of industry. He also championed digital start-ups, but his policies drew opposition from the most left-wing Socialists.

He launched En Marche as "neither left nor right" in April 2016, and resigned from the government before launching a presidential bid.

Among his supporters are veteran moderate François Bayrou and Socialist ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Mr Macron is married to his former French teacher Brigitte Trogneux, 20 years his senior, and has seven step-grandchildren.
What he wants:

Unify France's complex pension system, made up of 35 different public schemes

Cut 120,000 public-sector jobs and bring down the budget deficit

Slash corporation tax from 33% to 25% and let companies renegotiate 35-hour week

Send more teachers to deprived areas, ban mobile phone use in schools for under-15s

Strengthen EU ties, and tighten integration between eurozone countries

€50bn (£43bn; $53bn) public investment plan to cover job-training and shift to renewable energy

In depth: Emmanuel Macron's meteoric rise
What about the other candidates?

Two candidates - the conservative ex-Prime Minister François Fillon and the radical leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon - were not far behind Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen.

Mr Fillon, 62, had been an early favourite, beating heavyweights Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppé for the Republican candidacy. But his campaign was rocked by allegations that his wife and two children improperly received public funds. Initially he said he would step aside if he was placed under formal investigation, but never did.

Far-left firebrand Mr Mélenchon, 65, seized on the Socialist party's meltdown to become one of the four frontrunners. He seized the limelight with his razor-sharp wit during televised debates and impressed the public with his hi-tech use of holograms, projecting his image to rallies in six cities simultaneously.

Benoit Hamon, 49, was the Socialist Party's candidate. He is a left-wing rebel within the mainstream, who took the party's candidacy away from a former prime minister.

Nathalie Arthaud, Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), 46, Trotskyist: Sought to freeze job cuts, boost salaries and pensions, impose worker control on enterprises and ownership of means of production.

François Asselineau, Union Populaire Républicaine (Popular Republic Union), 59, Nationalist and anti-US: wanted withdrawal of France from the EU, euro and Nato, to renationalise big industries and private corporations.

Jacques Cheminade, 75, ex-civil servant in economy ministry sought to ditch the EU and abandon the euro. A follower of US conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Debout La France (Stand Up France), 55, Gaullist: wanted to leave the euro and scrap the EU, higher ethical standards for elected officials, focus on the fight against jihadist terrorism. Claims he received texts from the Fillon campaign urging him to withdraw his candidacy.

Jean Lassalle, 61, centrist, independent MP who wanted to renegotiate European treaties; staged a 39-day hunger strike in 2006 in a bid to save 140 jobs at a factory and walked 5,000km across France in 2013. Hailed for his "refreshing" bursts of rhetorical frankness, as when he coarsely dismissed the value of opinion polls.

Philippe Poutou, 50, New Anti-Capitalist PartyFord factory worker who wanted to lower retirement age to 60, reducing the working week to 32 hours and make abortion and contraception free and accessible. Many hailed him the star of the second presidential TV debate when he attacked Mr Fillon and Ms Le Pen over allegations of corruption.

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French election 2017: Who are the final candidates? - BBC News

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The two now battling to become French president - Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen - have sharply contrasting visions for France's future. Mr Macron, a liberal centrist, took 23.75% of votes in Sunday's first round, ahead of the nationalist Ms Le Pen on 21.53%. Eleven candidates were in the running.

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CNN.com - French election race gets personal - March 11, 2002

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French President Jacques Chirac has accused his election opponents of using fascist methods.