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New Delhi, May 7: As voters in France and its overseas territories cast their vote for the presidential election in the country, the contest between candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron seems to grow tenser, with the last campaign marked with unprecedented unpredictability. Macron who is a liberal centrist and Le Pen who is far-right nationalist stand at two poles of the France political scenario, both offering France things which are polar, and now, the question will be which side does the people of France choose.
According to BBC, the polls opened in Metropolitan France at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT) on Sunday and will close at at 19:00 local time (17:00 GMT). In some big cities, the polling stations will remain open until 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT).
Macron and Le Pen were amongst the 11 presidential hopefuls and topped them in the first round which was held on April 23. At this point of time, as per reports, the country is highly divided between the political ideologies and promises made by both Macron and Le Pen. While Macron is a pro-business and strong supporter of the European Union (EU), Le Pen has a France-first approach, an anti-immigration programme and wants France to abandon Euro in the domestic economy and also wishes to hold a referendum on France’s European Union membership.
Management of the France economy after the 2008 financial crisis, security of the country, issues of immigration and the relationship of France with the European Union are hence the primary focus of both the candidates. Notably, for this year’s election, the French have rejected the two major parties which has been governing the country for decades now, the Socialist and the Republicans
But then amidst all these, on Friday the Macron’s En March ! political movement revealed that it has been the victim of a massive hack and a series of documents have been released online. While the government has warned the media and the public about spreading information about the attack, present President Francois Hollande promised to respond to the attack.
Macron compared this hack attack to the hacking of US Democratic Party emails around the US Presidential Election and previously accused Moscow for them. However, Moscow has denied all such claims.
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