All eyes are on the French Presidential Election (Round #1) being held today. There are multiple candidates but only the top two go to round #2. Most predictions have Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron as the top two candidates.

UPDATE: 5:30pm EDT Surprising most of the liberal punditry, and contradicting most of the earlier exit polls, Marine Le Pen has won the first round over her closest rival Emmanuel Macron (link):

Francios Fillon conceded and endorsed the political establishment favorite Macron. Melenchon has refused to endorse anyone. As expected the national runoff will be:

Marine Le Pen -vs- Emmanuel Macron

Similar to Hillary Clinton, Macron will carry the endorsement of the professional political class and all of the left-wing French media. Similar to Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen will be running as an outsider against the entire political apparatus and the media machine.

(L-R) Francois Fillon, Benoît Hamon, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Economically all of the French candidates are various degrees socialism. Fillon is a typical Sarkozy type, Hamon is the French Bernie Sanders, Melenchon is a full communist; the distinctions between them -on an economic scale- are simply lighter or darker shades of socialism. It is on the social scale of nationalism or globalism the divergences are found.

Very interesting election currently taking place in France. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2017

Marine Le Pen represents nationalistic socialism and carries a platform to close the borders, halt the refugee influx and she supports exiting the EU. Emmanuel Macron represents the option for globalist socialism: open borders, more refugees, and more EU influence.

French Polls close at 8:00pm (local), 2:00pm ET. First exit polling will be announced shortly after 2:00pm U.S. Eastern Time.

AP French Live Link – BBC News Updates – Breitbart Live Blog – France 24 News