French President Emmanuel Macron, who is running for a second term, has won the most vote in the first round of the elections, 27.84%, the French Interior Ministry said on Monday.
The incumbent head of state will contest for the post with Marine Le Pen, the candidate from the National Rally party, who mustered 23.15% of the vote.
In third place was Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the France Unbowed leftist party, with 21.95% of the ballots. The only other candidate that overcame the 5% threshold was Eric Zemmour, the leader of the Reconquete party, who collected 7.07% of the vote, coming in the fourth.
Valerie Pecresse, president of the Regional Council of Ile-de-France and leader of The Republicans party, finished fifth, with 4.78%. Yannick Jadot, who represented the Europe Ecology - The Greens party, garnered 4.63%.
Jean Lassalle, the leader of the leftist Resistons party, collected 3.13%, while the other five candidates won even fewer votes.
According to the Interior Ministry, turnout reached 73.69% for the first round of the elections, the lowest level since 2002.
