Paris - France's Interior Ministry said Sunday that early figures from the country's second-round of presidential elections indicate a lower turnout than in previous years, a reading that could point to support for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The Ministry said turnout at noon Paris time was tabbed at 28.23%, a figure that fell shy of the first round of voting two weeks ago and the 30.12% rate estimated at the same time of the last round of presidential elections in 2012. Analysts have said the a lower turnout, combined with a higher rate of abstentions from people rejecting both Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, could favor the former Front National and anti-European candidate. However, final polls published Friday, the last day of official campaigning, showed firm support for Macron, who held a 62% to 38% advantage heading into today's vote. But some of that support could have been affected by an extraordinary development late Friday evening, when the Wikileaks organisation shared Tweets of what it claimed to be details of a hack of thousands of pages of email correspondence from the Macron campaign. With a ban on electoral publication in place, as is traditionally the case in the final day before European elections, major media outlets were unable to post details of the leak, or indeed discuss or allude to their contents for fear of prosecution from French authorities. Macron's campaign confirmed the security breach shortly afterwards and said that fake documents had been inserted among genuine campaign material in order to spread what it called "misinformation." The Interior Ministry will publish a second set of voting estimates at around 5:00 pm Paris time (11:00 eastern) while poll are expected to close three hours later at 8:00 pm CET. You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money. Check out his multi-million dollar portfolio and discover which stocks he is trading.
