Security is tight in all French cities as voters began casting ballots for the presidential election Sunday in a tense first-round poll that's seen as a test for the spread of populism around the world.
Over 60,000 polling stations opened at 6:00 a.m. GMT for voters who will choose between 11 candidates in the most unpredictable election in generations.
Security was tight — the government mobilized more than 50,000 police and gendarmes to protect 70,000 polling stations, with an additional 7,000 soldiers on patrol.
Security was a prominent issue after a wave of extremist attacks on French soil, including a gunman who killed a Paris police officer Thursday night before being shot dead by security forces. The gunman carried a note praising the ISIS group.
Polls suggest far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead. But conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.
France’s 10 percent unemployment, its lackluster economy and security issues topped concerns for the 47 million eligible voters.
Zeynab Alipour, a dedicated journalist for Jam-e Jam newspaper, passed away on Saturday evening due…
Blasts rang out across Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and other cities early on Sunday, as Russia…
At least 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on a five-story residential building in…
Outgoing US President Joe Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Lima, Peru, to discuss…
A human rights group has documented horrific premeditated murders and arbitrary extrajudicial executions of Palestinians…
Iran’s state-run Pars Oil and Gas Company has announced that daily production from the South…