What would Le Pen need to beat Macron? Answered your French election questions

The French voters faced a strong choice between the centrist Emmanuel Macron and his extremely right challenger Marine Le Pen when they went to the ballots on Sunday to choose their next president.

Mr. Macron hopes to become the first leader since Jacques Chirac in 2002, who wins a second term in the runoff election for the Elysee.

In the meantime, Ms. Le Pen has brought extreme rights closer to power than ever, but will that be enough? It is still 10 percentage points behind the incumbent.

The results are expected around 10:00 p.m. and you can track our live blog from 5:00 p.m.

Here we answer the questions that Telegraph readers asked us.

headscarf ban

f: Does Marine Le Pen really want to ban the headscarf in public or does she mean a face-covering veil? There seems to be a confusion of terminology between Niqab and hijab?

a: France banned the burqa and other headgear that completely cover the face in public, but the ban does not apply to the hijab because it does not cover the face.

Marine Le Pen has agreed to go further and impose a general public ban on the hijab or headscarf, which she describes as a "Islamist uniform" and which is widespread in a country with an estimated four to five million Muslims. Emmanuel Macron warned that the ban could trigger a "civil war".

The Corsica puzzle

f: How do the candidates feel an independent or autonomous corsica?

a: The government of Emmanuel Macron has declared that it is ready to consider an autonomy for Corsica, which will probably contain transmitted powers in healthcare and education.

The party of Marine Le Pen has accused Mr. Macron to be ready to "sell France", and rejects the idea that gained importance after weeks of violent protests in March.

full independence is not in sight for both candidates.

right or wrong?

F: Why insists on describing Marine Le Pen as a right-wing extremist if their economic policy is actually extremely left?

a: an excellent and difficult question. Marine Le Pen's economic policy can be regarded as left -wing, with far more stronger state intervention, but its social policy is openly nationalistic and legal.

It is far more legitimate in questions such as law and order and immigration than Mr. Macron. Their traditional left -wing ideas, such as the improvement of the welfare state, provide to prioritize French citizens against everyone who is not regarded as full French. Such discrimination, coupled with authoritarian ideas such as the ban on the Hijab, are considered extremely right.

Your Euroskepticism does not be based on the EU as a capitalist project, as is mostly the case with the left, but in their belief in the sovereignty of the nations, which is more of a typical right idea. Ms. Le Pen also allies with other right -wing extremist politicians throughout the EU.

Can she?

f: What would Marine Le Pen need to win?

Emmanuel Macron was in front of the surveys before the election day. That was our last survey on Saturday, the day before the final round.

Ms. Le Pen has to close this gap, which is now more difficult after she couldn't land a co-strike in the television debate between the two candidates last week.

In order for it to win, two things probably have to happen at the same time. Among the voters, from whom they are usually expected to stand behind Mr. Macron as the smaller of two evils, the turnout should be low, which is feared.

Ms. Le Pen would also have to convince a large number of Hartlinker voters, including supporters of the famous Gilet Jaunes, to support them instead of Mr. Macron. There are almost 8 million votes to win.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the extreme left, received 22 percent of the vote in the first ballot, compared to Mr. Macron and 23.1 percent of Ms. Le Pen.

Many of his voters do not want to support Mr. Macron, but Mr. Mélenchon told them that they shouldn't vote for Ms. Le Pen while refusing to support the incumbent.

Königsmacher in the assembly

f: Can Macron or Le Pen win the majority in the parliamentary elections in June?

a: Emmanuel Macron is the majority that he reached in 2017 not guaranteed when it is re -elected. The traditional middle-left and center-right parties would have to dramatically improve their results in order to have a chance of an alliance with him at all.

Mr. Mélenchon is optimistic about his chances of becoming royal maker if he can convert his strong third place into results in the parliamentary elections. He has set himself the goal of becoming prime minister.

Even a Le Pen victory would not lead to a majority. She would probably have to form a coalition with the right-wing arsonist Éric Zemrour, but that would require that it forgives him that he has received some of her national rally allies.

left in the middle

f: Why are these candidates never visit small rural cities in the middle of France?

a: The voters in the country often felt forgotten from the elites in the large French cities and especially Mr. Macron.

The President has made efforts to remedy it with a new “rural agenda” and traveled several small land cities in December.

Ms. Le Pen is located in the rural core country on safer soil, an area in which she enjoys considerable support.

The leader of the National Rally made "the deep France" and the cost of living at the center of her campaign and left matters such as immigration Mr. Zemmour.

the fact is that there are significantly fewer voters in rural small towns, which is why they are often neglected in favor of larger cities.

Wordkstecht about Ukraine

f: How does Marine Le Pen stand for the war in Ukraine?

a: Ms. Le Pen has a long and public success record of admiration for Vladimir Putin, which Mr. Macron ruthlessly emphasized in the last days of election.

Your National Rally took up loans from Russian banks and in February she insisted that Mr. Putin did not plan to intervene in Ukraine.

While Mr. Macron calls Mr. Putin her "banker", Ms. Le Pen calls every suggestion of a secret consultation with Russia a lie.

She says she has compassion with the Ukrainians, but also swore to block EU sanctions against Russian oil and gas if it is chosen.

It calls for an approximation between Moscow and NATO as soon as the war in Ukraine is over.

modernization, no!

f: How are the voices counted and integrity guaranteed?

French voices are mainly released on paper votes and counted by hand.

Despite the occasional modernization claims, France does not use election machines in mass and does not allow premature vote. Postal voting was banned in 1975 for fear of fraud, and only a handful of cities use machines. Voting rights representation is permitted.

The voting is personally in a cabin with closed curtains. The ballot is inserted into an envelope that is inserted into a transparent ballot box. In order to complete the process, a photo ID must be presented and a document must be signed.

Volunteers count the ballot papers individually. State software is used to register and report results. If a result is contested, the ballot papers are counted by hand.

French media must go to an election lock on Saturday from midnight. This prevents them from quoting the candidates or their supporters and publishing results until the polling stations close on Sunday evening.

The 2017 elections were attributed to the successful combat of the Russian interference, which was attributed to a centralized supervisory organ to protect the integrity of the vote.

The hours count

f: When do we find out the result?

The polling stations opened British on Sunday at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. at the latest. There are polling stations worldwide for French living abroad.

In the French overseas areas, the vote on Saturday began so that they can be counted in time for the cut -off date in France.

The preliminary result of sample votes for selected polling stations is available at 7 p.m. If the result is extremely scarce, it can be held back to the full count.

The count continues all night and the final results will be announced on Monday morning. There is usually only one error of 1 to 2 percent, which means that we should know who is the next President of France on Sunday at 7 p.m.