The rather close race for the French presidency between incumbent President Emanuel Macron and the leader of the populist right-wing National Assembly Marin Le Pen raises serious concerns across Europe.
At the root of the concerns - the fall of France into the hands of a party that opposes the EU in its current form, and is interested in promoting first and foremost the national interests of France at the expense of those of the other EU countries.
The latest polls, published before the first round of voting today, indicated a declining trend in the gap between the leading Macron with about 26% and Le Pen, which strengthened to about 24%.
If Le Pen succeeds, for the first time, in gaining more votes from the incumbent president, a new dynamic will be created ahead of the second round of voting, on April 24.
Macron will be able to recruit alongside him the voters who fear the victory of the populist right-wing candidate.
Le Pen, on the other hand, will be able to mobilize Macron's many opponents and those who have been hoping for decades for a "new French revolution."
Thousands of supporters in the south of France
Her last round of elections, Le Pen chose to hold in Perpignan, the second largest city in France, in front of thousands of supporters from all over southern France, from her party's main strongholds, who filled the “exhibition palace” in the southern city by word of mouth.
There was hope among all of them that this time the 53-year-old Le Pen would finally be able to beat the establishment and be elected to the Elysee Palace as the representative of the "Patriotic French".
Le Pen does everything to avoid the mistakes of her presidential campaign five years ago, and mostly tries to attract left-wing voters in social, ecological and feminist messages.
But it also incorporates unequivocal national ideas - such as "I will return France to the French, and they will decide who deserves the privilege of becoming French. Obtaining French citizenship is not an administrative procedure, it is an honor" - addressed to right-wing rival voters Eric Zamor Less than 10% support.
Zamor, who refrained from emphasizing his Jewish identity in the election campaign, asked members of the Jewish community for their support at the polls.
"The media and some 'representatives' of the community want to hide the simple truth: the anti-Semitism that kills today is Islamist. I am the only candidate who has the courage to frontally and radically oppose jihadists," he said.
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