France:Macron leads Le Pen in early vote count for presidency

French President Emmanuel Macron leads far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's elections Sunday by a larger than expected margin, with the rivals now set to battle for the presidency in a run-off later this month, projections showed. Macron scored 28.1-29.7 percent in the first round and Le Pen 23.3-24.7, with the top two candidates going through to the second round run off on April 24, according to projections by polling firms for French television channels based on a sample of votes. The performance by Macron appears to be stronger than predicted by opinion polls in the run-up to the vote.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon was predicted to come third with 19.8-20.8 percent and extreme-right pundit Eric Zemmour on 6.8-7 percent with candidates of the traditional left and right trailing far behind. Valerie Pecresse from the right-wing Republicans was on 4.3-5 percent, in a disastrous performance by the party of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, the projections showed.Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo was projected to face electoral doom with a score of just 1.8-2.0 percent.