Belgian media La Libre and RTBF say polls show Macron leads in French election

By Marine Strauss

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian newspaper La Libre and Belgian public broadcaster RTBF carried reports on Sunday saying that according to two unidentified exit polls, Emmanuel Macron was leading the vote in the French presidential election with between 55% and 58% of the votes.

France’s official polling watchdog said last week that the country’s eight main pollsters had committed to not publishing exit polls and said anything purporting to reflect results before the last polling stations close at 8 p.m. in France (1800 GMT) could only be considered rumour at best.

La Libre and RTBF stressed that the findings, whose sources they did not disclose, were based on polls conducted up until 5 p.m., at which time there were still three hours of voting remaining in France’s big cities.

(Reporting by Marine Strauss; Editing by Frances Kerry)