Le Pen won 21.4 percent of the vote on Sunday to 23.9 percent for Macron, who is now projected to defeat her by a margin of about 20 points in the runoff. "I assure you that extremism can only bring division and misfortune to France", François Fillon, the Republican candidate who came in third on Sunday with 20.01% of the vote, said, urging his supporters to vote for the centre and shun the far-right.
It is the best result ever achieved by the nationalist anti-EU and anti-immigration party the National Front in a French presidential election. "I will be above the partisan considerations - it is an important act".
The trio are fans of leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, but said they would now vote against Le Pen in the upcoming run-off vote. "They can be in agreement with us", said Front National vice president Steeve Brios.
Voters narrowed the presidential field from 11 to two on Sunday in an election widely seen as a litmus test for the populist wave that past year prompted Britain to vote to leave the European Union and USA voters to elect Donald Trump president.
"The centrist pro-European Macron will not only help stabilise the European Union, but also help build stronger support mechanisms". "We are going to win".
Hollande, a Socialist nearing the end of five years of unpopular rule, threw his weight behind his former economy minister in a televised address, saying Le Pen's policies were divisive and stigmatized sections of the population.
Lionel Messi sends message to Barcelona fans after Real Madrid heroics
Zidane felt Real paid the cost for failing to take the scoring chances which came their way. With Barcelona out of Europe, La Liga is their only hope of silverware this season.
According to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive, 12 percent of those who voted for Melenchon intend to cast their ballots for Marine Le Pen in the second round.
The two candidates will spend the next two weeks hitting the campaign trail.
This included expelling her father from the party in August 2015 after he made controversial comments about the Holocaust - describing it as a "detail of history" - and defended Philippe Pétain, the leader of France's Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime in the 1940s.
Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the world in 2002 by qualifying for the second round of the presidential election and then went on to lose in a landslide to conservative Jacques Chirac.
However, a new poll, run by OpinonWay, has him at 61 per cent of the vote, compared to Le Pen, who is on 39 per cent, with most analysts predicting a comfortable win on May 7. He has recruited a number of security experts to his entourage, and noted that Le Pen has less experience of national government than he does.
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