FLASH  opinion polls conducted in the wake of first-round voting in France’s presidential election Sunday forecast that Emmanuel Macron will secure a new five-year term in the second-round run-off on April 24 against far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

The contest will be a rematch of the 2017 fight that Macron, a former investment banker who ran a reformist campaign from the centre, won handily at 66% compared with 34% for Le Pen.

But the result will be much closer this year, surveys suggest, and much will hinge on campaign arguments over the next two weeks highlighted by a prime-time television debate between the two candidates on April 20.

An Ifop-Fiducial poll conducted after polls closed on Sunday showed Macron with just a slight edge of 51% in the run-off compared to Le Pen’s 49%, with a margin of error of three percentage points.

Separate polls by Ipsos-Sopra Steria as well as OpinionWay both put Macron at 54% against 46% for Le Pen.

Macron came out on top in the first round on Sunday, with a projected score of 28.6 to 29.7%, followed by Le Pen on 23.5 to 24.7%, using projections by polling firms based on samples from voting stations.

Final results will be published by the Interior Ministry in the coming hours. – AFP, April 11, 2022.