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AFP
Paris
Centrist Emmanuel Macron finished ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday to qualify alongside her for the runoff in France's presidential election, initial projections suggested.
Macron was projected to score 23-24 percent, with Le Pen at 21.6-23 percent, according to several polling institutes.
If the first-round result is confirmed, it would put the 39-year-old pro-Europe Macron within striking distance of the presidency.
He is on course to face eurosceptic, anti-immigration Le Pen in the May 7 vote seen as vital for the future of the ailing European Union.
The outcome capped an extraordinary few months for a deeply divided France, which saw a campaign full of twists and turns and a movement away from traditional parties.
The French vote was being closely watched as a bellwether for populist sentiment following the election of Donald Trump as US President and Britain's vote to leave the EU.
Le Pen and Macron were the pre-vote favourites to progress to the run-off on May 7 but late gains by conservative Francois Fillon and radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon had blown the race wide open.
The vote took place under heavy security after the killing on Thursday of a policeman on Paris's Champs Elysees avenue claimed by the Islamic State group.
With France still under the state of emergency imposed after the Paris attacks of November 2015, around 50,000 police and 7,000 soldiers were deployed to guard voters.
Thursday's shooting on the most famous street in Paris was the latest in a bloody series of terror attacks that have cost more than 230 lives since 2015.
Nearly 47 million people were eligible to vote in the eurozone's second biggest economy.
Voting was brisk on a bright spring day, defying forecasts of a low turnout after a campaign dominated by scandals and disillusionment with the mainstream parties of the left and right that have alternated in power for the past half century.
Riding the wave of disaffection with globalisation that carried Trump to the White House and led Britain to vote for Brexit, Le Pen vowed to abandon the euro, hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU and adopt a French-first policy on jobs and housing.
Analysts had said a Le Pen victory could nonetheless be a devastating blow for the EU, already weakened by Britain's shock vote to leave.
Macron, a 39-year-old pro-EU reformer, is seeking to become France's youngest ever president despite never having held elected office.
Tapping into anger with established parties, the former banker and economy minister formed his own movement,"En Marche" (On the Move), that he says is"neither to the left nor to the right."
Le Pen cast her ballot in Henin-Beaumont, a former coal mining town in the party's northern heartland.
Macron voted in the chic northern seaside resort of Le Touquet with wife Brigitte, his former high school teacher who is 25 years his senior. Fillon and Melenchon both voted in Paris.
