法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙预计将在2010年后赢得第二个任期面对他的极右翼对手马林·勒·庞在周日的决选中胜出。
由法国媒体报道并由法国民调机构益普索向美国广播公司证实的早期估计显示，中间派现任赢得了58%的选票，高于民意调查的预测。投票将继续通宵统计，最终结果将于周一下午由法国政府公布。马克龙将是20年来第一位连任的在任法国总统。
随着全国各地的投票站关闭，法国媒体周日晚上宣布了初步结果，马克龙在巴黎闪闪发光的埃菲尔铁塔前集会的支持者欢呼:“我们赢了，她输了!”
一名马克龙的支持者告诉美国广播公司新闻，他“松了一口气”。
“因为我害怕马林·勒·庞会赢，”他说。
然而，勒庞是当晚在巴黎布洛涅森林边缘的集会上第一个登上舞台的人，此前她听到了自己预计会失败的消息。虽然承认失败，她告诉她的支持者，“今晚的结果本身就代表了一场耀眼的胜利。”她赢得了大约42%的选票，这是法国现代史上极右翼政党候选人获得的最高票数。
“我们可以看到，我们仍然取得了胜利，”勒庞说，然后承诺“为法国和法国人追求她的承诺”，并“领导立法选举的战斗。”
44岁的马克龙和53岁的勒庞，浮现在4月10日的第一轮投票后，作为2022年法国总统选举的首选候选人。周日的决选是2017年总统选举的重演，马克龙以压倒性优势击败勒庞。
本周早些时候，法国媒体报道的民意调查显示，第二轮投票前的竞争非常激烈，马克龙领先勒庞约13个百分点。
“民意调查显示，两名候选人之间的差距比五年前缩小了很多，”法国益普索主席兼全球副首席执行官亨利·瓦拉德周六告诉美国广播公司新闻。
这一次，勒庞寻求软化她作为极右翼法国政党全国集会领导人的言论和形象。这位前律师不再直接呼吁法国脱离欧盟，放弃欧元。然而，由于她在伊斯兰教和移民问题上的强硬政策，她被比作美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普。如果当选，她发誓要禁止穆斯林在公共场合戴头巾，并在住房和工作福利方面给予法国公民比外国人更高的优先权。
“她的形象变得柔和了很多，”瓦拉德说。"她给人的印象不像以前那么极端。"
弗朗索瓦·莫里/美联社
极右领袖马林·勒·庞在早期结果项目结束后到达演讲时做手势
勒庞还因其支持俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京的历史而受到批评。她称俄罗斯入侵邻国乌克兰是“不可接受的”，并表示她支持制裁，但公开反对限制俄罗斯能源进口，理由是担心法国生活成本上升。她还承诺让法国退出北约的综合军事指挥，这可能会削弱对乌克兰战斗的支持。勒庞此前曾公开表示支持俄罗斯在2014年吞并乌克兰克里米亚半岛。
“她的胜利将是一场政治地震，”华盛顿外交关系委员会的高级研究员查尔斯·库普钱周五告诉美国广播公司新闻。"她可能不会破坏联盟，但会提出一些棘手的问题。"
与此同时，马克龙几乎没有参加竞选活动，因为他主持了普京与西方国家之间的谈判，最终未能阻止乌克兰战争。在普遍通胀和油价飙升的情况下，许多法国公民感到被马克龙严格的新冠肺炎政策和不受欢迎的提高法定退休年龄的计划剥夺了权利。
一名巴黎居民周六告诉ABC新闻，决定投票给哪位候选人就像在“霍乱和瘟疫”之间做出选择巴黎郊区一个投票站的另一名选民告诉美国广播公司新闻，他认为马克龙“邪恶较小”
对选民投票率可能很低的担忧在法国各地的投票站成为现实。根据包括益普索(Ipsos)和Sopra Steria在内的四家法国民调机构的综合估计，周日的最终弃权率将达到28%，比2017年增加2.5%。
在周日晚上的简短胜利演讲中，马克龙向那些没有投票的人发表了讲话。
“他们的沉默意味着拒绝选择，我们也必须做出回应，”马克龙告诉人群。
这位前银行家出身的总统随后向勒庞的支持者伸出了手。
他说，“我的想法是为了那些投票给勒庞夫人的人，因为从现在开始，我不再是一个政党的候选人，而是每个人的总统。”
French election 2022: Macron projected to beat far-right rival Le Pen
PARIS -- French President Emmanuel Macron is projected to win a second term in office afterfacinghis far-right rival Marine Le Pen in a runoff election on Sunday.
Early estimates reported by French media and confirmed to ABC News by French polling institute Ipsos show that the centrist incumbent won a comfortable 58% of the votes, which was higher than opinion polls had predicted. Votes will continue to be counted overnight, with final results being released Monday afternoon by the French government. Macron would be the first sitting French president to be reelected in 20 years.
As polling stations closed across the country and French media announced the preliminary results on Sunday evening, supporters at Macron’s rally in front of the shimmering Eiffel Tower in Paris cheered: "We won, she lost!"
One Macron supporter told ABC News that he was "relieved."
"Because I was afraid Marine Le Pen would win," he said.
Le Pen, however, was the first to take the stage that night at her rally on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, following the news of her projected loss. While admitting defeat, she told her supporters that "tonight’s result represents in itself a dazzling victory." She won an estimated 42% of the votes -- the highest amount by a far-right party candidate in France’s modern history.
"We can see that we have nevertheless been victorious," Le Pen said, before promising to "pursue her engagement for France and for the French" and to "lead the battle of the legislative elections."
Macron, 44, and Le Pen, 53,emergedas the top candidates in the 2022 French presidential election after a first-round vote on April 10. Sunday's runoff was a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, in which Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.
Earlier this week, opinion polls reported by French media showed a close race ahead of the second-round vote, with Macron leading Le Pen by about 13 percentage points.
"The gap between the two candidates as measured in the polls is much more narrow than five years ago," Henri Wallard, the chairman of Ipsos in France and its global deputy CEO, told ABC News on Saturday.
This time, Le Pen sought to soften her rhetoric and image as the leader of the far-right French political party National Rally. The former lawyer was no longer directly calling for France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro currency. However, she was likened to former U.S. President Donald Trump with her hard-line policies on Islam and immigration. If elected, she vowed to ban Muslim headscarves in public and give French citizens priority over foreigners for housing and job benefits.
"Her image has considerably softened," Wallard said. "She comes across as less extremist than before."
Le Pen was also criticized for her history of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She called Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine "unacceptable" and said she's in favor of sanctions, but publicly opposed restrictions on Russian energy imports, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France. She also pledged to withdraw France from NATO's integrated military command, which could undermine support for Ukraine's fight. Le Pen previously spoke out in favor of Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
"Her victory would be a political earthquake," Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., told ABC News on Friday. "She would probably not wreck that coalition, but raise difficult questions."
Meanwhile, Macron was all but absent from the campaign trail as he moderated talks between Putin and Western countries, which ultimately failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Many French citizens were feeling disenfranchised by Macron's stringent COVID-19 policies and unpopular plans to raise the legal retirement age amid widespread inflation and soaring gas prices.
One Paris resident told ABC News on Saturday that deciding which candidate to vote for was like choosing between "cholera and the plague." Another voter at a polling station on the outskirts of Paris told ABC News that he considered Macron "the lesser evil."
Fears that voter turnout could be low materialized in polling stations across France. The final rate of abstention is set to reach 28% for Sunday, up 2.5% from 2017, according to convergent estimates from four French polling institutes, including Ipsos and Sopra Steria.
In a brief victory speech on Sunday night, Macron addressed those who didn't vote.
"Their silence signified a refusal to choose, which we must also respond to," Macron told the crowd.
The former banker-turned-president then reached out to Le Pen's supporters.
"My thoughts go to those who voted for Mrs. Le Pen," he said, "because from now on, I am no longer a candidate for a party, but I am everyone's president."
