PARIS // French voters went to the polls Sunday to pick a new president, choosing between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a watershed election for the country and Europe.
Polling day follows an unprecedented campaign marked by scandal, repeated surprises and a last-minute hacking attack targeting Mr Macron, a 39-year-old who has never held elected office.
The run-off vote pits the pro-Europe, pro-business Mr Macron against anti-immigration and anti-EU Ms Le Pen, two radically different visions that underline a split in western democracies.
Ms Le Pen, 48, has portrayed the ballot as a contest between the "globalists" represented by her rival - those in favour of open trade, immigration and shared sovereignty - versus the "nationalists" who defend strong borders and national identities
She is hoping to spring a shock result that would resonate as widely as Britain's Brexit decision to withdraw from the European Union or the unexpected victory of US president Donald Trump.
"The world is watching," said 32-year-old Marie Piot as she voted in a working-class part of north-west Paris.
"After Brexit and Trump, it's as if we are the last bastion of the Enlightenment," said Ms Piot, who works in marketing.
The last opinion polls showed Mr Macron - who won the first round vote last month - with a widening lead of around 62 per cent to 38 per cent for Ms Le Pen before the hacking revelations surfaced on Friday evening. A campaigning blackout entered into force shortly after.
Hundreds of thousands of emails and documents stolen from the Macron campaign were dumped online and then spread by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, in what the candidate called an attempt at "democratic destabilisation".
France's election authority said publishing the documents could be a criminal offence, a warning heeded by traditional media organisations but flouted by Mr Macron's opponents and far-right activists online.
Whoever wins Sunday's vote it is set to cause profound change for France, the world's sixth-biggest economy, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a global military power.
It is the first time neither of the country's traditional parties has a candidate in the final round of the presidential election under the modern French republic, founded in 1958.
* Agence France-Presse
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