Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are leading in the partial vote count in France’s presidential election.
If the results are confirmed, once all votes are counted, the candidates will face each other in the decisive 7 May runoff.
A race between the two outsiders, who eliminated the candidates of the traditional parties of the left and the right, will now offer French voters a stark choice. The next president of France will either by a former investment banker who strongly supports the European Union and multiculturalism, or an ultranationalist member of the European parliament who wants a French exit from the union and a halt to immigration.