France Goes On Presidential Polls Amid Tight Security, Widespread Panic

May 7 is an important day for French people when the country will get the new president after judging fate of 11 candidates.

For the overseas citizens the polling stations opened up on Saturday and voting to start on Sunday on the mainland.

The main concerns of voters today are issues related to security, a lacklustre economy and the unemployment rate is at 10 percent.

From Friday midnight the all the political campaigns were banned and until Sunday’s 8 p.m. the country will have a peaceful atmosphere to help voters decide who their new president would be.

If believed to polls expert, two names are in the lead of the presidential race. One is far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and the other is an independent centrist and a former economy minister Emmanuel Macron.

Meanwhile, the security is highly heavy in the country equipped with 7,000 soldiers patroling all the corners. The government has deployed over 50,000 police and gendarmes to protect 70,000 polling stations.

The deployment of very tight security comes amid series of attacks on French soil including the one on Thursday night in which a gunman, praising Islamic State in a note, killed a Paris police officer before being shot dead by security forces.

Three suspects are in custody as they are alleged to have close contacts with the attacker.

Over the security reasons the last campaign even of Ms Le Pen and Mr Fillon were also cancelled.

The country has been highly tensed up lately and a widespread panic was caused on Saturday when a man was found holding a knife at Paris’ Gare du Nord railway station. No one was hurt and the man is in custody.