The French are going to the polls to choose a new President of the Republic today, at a time when statistics point to a record number of possible abstentions.

The ballot paper features names from different political backgrounds and, in addition to outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, includes Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Union party (far right), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (far left), Valérie Pécresse (from France's largest right-wing party, The Republicans), Éric Zemmour (controversial former journalist and political commentator), Yannick Jadot (ecologists), Fabien Roussel (French Communist Party), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (standing Republic movement) and Anne Hidalgo (Socialist Party).

Also in the presidential race are Jean Lassalle (founder of the Resistance Party), Philippe Poutou (worker and trade unionist), and Nathalie Arthaud (Workers Struggle party).

Despite the polemics surrounding his governance and the possible fall in popularity, President Macron seems the favorite for the job. However, the last few days have seen his competitor Marine Le Pen gaining ground in voting intentions.

Polls conducted on Friday indicated that Macron could be re-elected to office in the very first round, leaving Le Pen immediately behind him with a slight difference in votes.

According to this poll, which shows that the difference between these two candidates has never been too short, the distance between the votes would be between one and three percentage points.

Marine Le Pen has been rising in the last week in voting intentions, with about 20% last month she has come close to Emmanuel Macron, who is down from about 30%.

The polls also indicate that an unprecedented proportion of French people, out of some 48.7 million expected voters, are not sure who to vote for or whether they will vote at all.