French duel: Macron vs Le Pen fight for presidency | AP News

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron may be ahead in the presidential race so far, but he warned his supporters that “nothing is done” and his runoff battle with far-right challenger Marine Le Pen will be a hard fight.

The duel is starting Monday, after the two came out on top in Sunday’s first-round vote.

On her third attempt to become France’s first woman president, Le Pen was rewarded Sunday for her years-long effort to rebrand herself as more pragmatic and less extreme.

“Our focus is now on the project and the values,” Senator Francois Patriat, a member of Macron’s party, said.

Macron will use the next days to “go in the field,” he said.

“Now everything is possible,” Aurélien Lopez Liguori, a municipal councilor with Le Pen’s party in the southern city of Sete, told The AP.

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