By Ashis Ray

Paris, Apr 25 (IANS): With voting still to be completed in France's big cities, an unofficial projection by the Belgian media, based on calculations culled from ballots cast in the country and towns and estimates of which way the votes have gone in major urban centres until an hour before polling closed, declared President Emmanuel Macron as leading significantly in the contest.

Amid a turnout which was expected to be lower than the first qualifying round, Belgian newspaper La Libre and Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said that according to two unidentified exit polls, Emmanuel Macron was leading the vote in the French presidential election with between 55 per cent and 58 per cent of the votes.

Belgium and Switzerland both have French as one of their official languages. Foreign media, not subject to French law, which prohibits such advance predictions, carry such projections. Violators in France risk a fine of 75,000 euros.