all right so let's start this broadcast with what is happening in france it's the big day and voting has begun to elect the next president of the french republic there are a total of 12 candidates who are in the running for the presidency but the top two who seem to have an early lead in the opinion polls of course are emanuel macron and marie lee penn remember marie le pen the far right candidate was the closest of the rivals to the incumbent president back in 2017 but back then it was a landslide victory to emanuel by france let's see what's changed the last five years the two leaders come from very different ideologies now what's also interesting is that emmanuel macron likes to describe himself as a centrist but he's also said that the differences between the right and the left simply do not matter in france anymore marie le pen however is clear with her ideology she is a far-right leader she's seeking to win a re she's seeking to of course uh win an election and topple about with macron so let's look at the promises that have been made by the two starting with the economy and employment situation macro over the last five years has struggled at a struggled part le pen has promised tax cuts but the incumbent has said that the government will now toughen the security laws against growing terrorism on the other hand le pen has kept her focus on domestic issues like increasing social benefits for the french people emmanuel macro has also about to gradually raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. this is being seen to be very unpopular with waters who are already facing a cost of living crowds remember emanuel macron faced a lot of flack for bringing down pensions which started off the yellow west protest movement against him on the other hand the far-right leader plans to exempt companies from taxes only if they raise the minimum wage by about 10 percent now on the issue of immigration and for the french people this of course is a big deal besides pensions they're very worried about immigration this is a core issue in the country marie le pen is known for her hard anti-immigration stance she's promised to halt the abuse of the right to asylum and marie le pen plans to bring in a referendum on restricting immigration into france whereas macro has said that he wants to strengthen the free borders and also to eliminate illegal migration into the country the french president is also in talks to form a new group to get rid of extremism the body will include clergy and laymen and women and he wishes to give islam what he describes as a bit of a french makeover or a french interpretation of the religion many would say that in france religion and the state should stay apart now marie le pen has taken a pretty raising pledge she has said that she will ban islamic hijab in public areas remember the face whale is already banned in france enough she wants to take it further and she wants to ban hijab altogether all right now to give us more insurance in terms of what is likely to play out in this election what are the issues that people in france are waiting for we're joined in by ross collins joining us live from paris with more updates good morning to you this of course is the big day in france where the french public will be deciding on who will be their president next but give us a sense of you know what are the issues that are on top of the mind of the french public as they go into waterloo well polling has got underway here in mainland france beginning at 8 00 a.m local time you can see a polling station behind me here in the center of the french capital it will last until 8 pm local time here in paris closing slightly earlier in some other parts of the country voting actually began got underway on saturday in france's overseas departments places like uh reunion the indian uh ocean also guadalupe and martinique in the caribbean if you are a french citizen living overseas you can also vote a day early on saturday so expats in countries like the united states were able to go to embassies and consulates to cast their ballot but for 48 million french people here in mainland france today is the day to cast your vote for one of the 12 candidates running in this first round it's a widespread kind of primary style battle all the candidates fighting to finish in the top two and then to be able to advance to the runoff vote in two weeks time purchasing power the war in ukraine the environment these are some of the key issues that have been going through voters minds as they cast their ballots uh today we understand that the energy crisis has been one of the top uh agenda points for marine license on her journey around the country visiting hundreds of villages and towns over the last six months to try to underscore that she believes that her program for bringing down energy price prices reducing the cost of living for voters believes that her program is the best and she is fighting at the moment to try to get into the top two it's most likely at the moment that emmanuel macron the incumbent president and marine le pen of the right-wing nationalist national rally party will be the two candidates who do go through to the second round absolutely indeed that appears to what may happen that's according to the opinion polls but tell us a bit about you know how this is shaping up for emmanuel macron because in the weeks leading up to the election date it appeared that emanuel macron had a very healthy lead in the opinion polls but marie lee penn now seems to have caught up with him he did have a healthy lead you're right in the in march we saw those opinion polls towards the end of march even at the very start of april showing that due to this bounce he got from a what's known as a rally round the flag effect when the public favors stability rather than a possible change of leader all tied to the war in ukraine emmanuel macron was trying to play these three roles of president campaigner and a wartime diplomat we know those regular phone calls he was having with vladimir putin the russian president to try to broker a peaceful route for dialogue and regularly speaking on the phone as well so vladimir zelinski the president of ukraine and other western allies for france like president biden of the united states and prime minister johnson of the united kingdom so we did see that bounce from emmanuel macron but in the last 10 days or so marine le pen has been whittling away at his lead and it now down to around about 25 anywhere between 25 and 27 of first round votes according to polls will be going to emmanuel macron around 20 to 22 percent of first round votes could be going to marine le pen so that is the decision that voters face today we have seen a late surge from the far left leader jean-luc melechon from the france unbowed uh party he is trying to show that there is a a coherent left message from the left wing parties that uh rivals uh marine le pen's trying to get into the second round we have seen some real lots of parties on the left of french politics from the communist party to the anti-capitalist party to the workers party along with the mainstream socialist party all of them trying to bounce back because we have seen a real demolition of left-wing policies particularly since emmanuel macron came to power in 2017 really upsetting that traditional balance with the center-right republicans and the center-left socialists trying to create his own space for what was known as this radical centrism of emmanuel macron but anyway he is he is going to be trying to reinforce his program his policies and try to get through to the second round in two weeks time absolutely indeed and lastly uh ross uh one of the things that emmanuel macron mentioned is that he did not campaign enough he did not get his feet wet enough uh tell us a bit about you know what the mood is like amongst the french public what kind of a water turnout can we expect because the campaigning ahead of this election simply was not what one would have expected no i haven't and there are people trickling in it's a sunday morning here in paris that there mud are people turning out to vote one of the one of the fears for election monitors is what the rate of abstentionism will be like there have been some surveys carried out in march in early april as well that point to a large number of voters could be choosing to stay at home rather than cast their votes that is something that the parties particularly emmanuel macron's party republic on the move on marsh will be wanting to try to counter those fears some people do believe that there is a sense of complacency trickling into the macron camp with emmanuel macron in the last couple manager of days admitting that he regrets not starting his campaign earlier he said he was devoting a lot of his time too much time perhaps he believes to dealing with international diplomacy in the war in ukraine rather than the domestic election campaign so there could be that sense of complacency among some voters something that emanuel macron and all the the 11 other candidates will be trying to counter to try to get their message out and to try to get the voters coming to polling stations to cast their ballots right we'll have to leave that thank you very much indeed ross collins for joining us from paris and getting us all those updates will of course come back to you as the voting progresses in the day bjorn is now available in your country download the app now and get all the news on the move
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