The centrist Emmanuel Macron was on course to become the next president of France on Sunday after leading the poll ahead of the far-right Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting, according to immediate post-polling estimates.
For the first time in modern French history, neither of the major parties has made it to the final run-off stage of electing a president.
Mr Macron, 39, a former banker who has never previously been elected to political office, drew support from the traditional left, right and centre of French politics and won significant support among young voters.
As projections showed him reaching the last stage of the presidential election, he said, "The French have expressed their desire for change. We are clearly turning a page in French political history."
He served the government of France's outgoing and deeply unpopular socialist president Francois Hollande as unelected economy minister but resigned from office last August to build his "En marche" (Forward) movement.
Several senior figures, including serving socialist ministers and back bench members of parliament, flocked to his cause during the campaign. Last night, the socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve called on voters to reject the far right leader and vote Mr Macron into the Elysee palace.
Supporters of Mr Macron and his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, went wild with cheers as polling agency projections suggested they could advance to the presidential run-off.
"We will win!" Le Pen supporters chanted in her election day headquarters in Henin-Beaumont. They burst into a rendition of the French national anthem, and waved French flags and blue flags with "Marine President" inscribed on them.
But at the Paris headquarters of conservative Francois Fillon, there was only silence and disappointment as the projections on television screens put him in third place, and therefore out of the running. As he conceded defeat he urged voters to back Emmanuel Macron, saying Ms Le Pen would bankrupt France if elected.
"There is no other choice but to vote against the far right, I will vote for Emmanuel Macron," he said.
Although Ms Le Pen now joins Mr Macron in the decisive second round on May 7, all forecasts to date have insisted that such a run-off will end with her being defeated by a comfortable margin.
Mainstream politicians will be horrified by the presence of the anti-European Union, anti-Islam and fiercely protectionist Ms Le Pen in the decider. But the scenario that provoked most pre-election concern and threatened the survival of the EU — far right versus the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon — was avoided.
Mr Melenchon's late surge took him to joint third place in the early estimates with the centre-right candidate Francois Fillon, who ultimately found it impossible to rise above the damage caused by disclosures of huge payments made to family members, from public funds, for little or no work as assistants.
Estimates from state-owned France 2 television put Mr Macron on 23.7 per cent, two points ahead of Ms Le Pen. Mr Fillon and Mr Melenchon each polled 19.5 per cent and were eliminated. Other media outlets gave varying estimates, but still with Mr Macron leading Ms Le Pen. Abstention was said to be around 22 per cent, well short of most forecasts during the latter stages of the campaign.
The conventional left-wing candidate, Benoit Hamon, suffered a humiliating defeat, polling only 6.2 per cent, a measure of Mr Hollande's unpopularity and the deep divisions within the socialist party. He conceded defeat within 30 minutes of close of voting.
The closeness of the contest, which could have produced two leading candidates from any part of the political spectrum, means the first projections must be treated with some caution. However, the margins seemed sufficient to confirm Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen for the run-off.
The presidential election has consequences for the EU, for millions of Muslims in France and for world financial markets. It is also the first ever to be held while France is under a state of emergency, which has been in place since the November 2015 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead.
More than 50,000 police and gendarmes were deployed to protect 66,000 polling stations for the election, which came just three days after a gunman killed a police officer on the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris.
Voters were choosing among 11 presidential candidates in the most unpredictable contest in generations. Missing from the list of choices was the current president, socialist Francois Hollande, who decided that his historic unpopularity would hurt his party's cause.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
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