The scene was replicated in cities across the world this weekend, despite some being thousands of miles away from France. French expats in the United States and Canada began voting Saturday, a day before the polls opened in France. Expats in other parts joined in the vote on Sunday, some waiting in line for hours, spurred by the significance of the increasingly tense election in their home country.

In a field of 11 candidates, a handful have emerged as front-runners — including far-left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 65, and the far-right Marine Le Pen, 48 — and only the two candidates who receive the most votes Sunday, assuming no one wins an outright majority, will advance to the final round on May 7.

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The result of the presidential election is likely to have dramatic consequences for France, the European Union and international security. Many expats said the election was too critical to sit out.

“I'm a bit worried right now about what's going on in France,” Manon Harsigny, who waited two hours to cast her vote in Montreal, told CBC News on Saturday. “I know the far right is gaining more and more power and I really, really need to express my opinion, and I don't want to feel guilty after the election.”

Still others expressed the same reservations about Mélenchon.

“For me the worst is any kind of extreme,” Lisa Di Jorio told CBC News. “That can be Marine Le Pen but it can also be the extreme opposite of that. The extreme left is not any better.”

There had been concerns that many French citizens would abstain from voting, but that did not appear to be the case as of Sunday afternoon. So far, voter turnout is on track with 2012 levels.

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On Sunday morning, hundreds of French expats showed up outside the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London, creating a line that hugged the building and wound around the block almost as far as the eye could see. The French Embassy in Britain tweeted that the average wait time to vote was one to 1½ hours.

“Let's not spread #fakenews and discourage people from voting! #JeVoteaLondres,” the embassy tweeted.

One French voter in London seemed to be motivated to push back against the populist surges that have overtaken Britain and the United States in the past year.

“We've already had Brexit and Trump,” Marc Jeannin told the Guardian. “We don't need a third shock.”

Though the lines were not quite as long as those in Canada, French expats in the United States also turned out Saturday, with many in Washington venturing out in the rain to the French Embassy.

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Slate's Henry Grabar wrote of French expats wrestling with conflicting emotions as they waited to cast their ballots in Brooklyn the same day.

“Maybe the strategy was to attempt to boost the conservative François Fillon into the runoff, instead of padding the lead of the front-running centrist Emmanuel Macron. Or did that leave Macron vulnerable to the surging Mélenchon?” Grabar wrote. “One woman, who had arrived undecided, said it was the first time she had cried in the voting booth. She wouldn’t say whom she chose.”

On social media throughout the weekend, French expats from Japan to Germany shared selfies and pictures of long lines and polling places with the hashtag #JaiVote, or “I voted.”

French expats vote in Tokyo …

… in Berlin

… in Vancouver

… in Brussels

… in Mumbai