Candidates keep quiet ahead of tomorrow's vote

After ten days of debates, meetings, interviews, statements and leafleting, campaigning for the first round of the French presidential election is over.

The candidates are currently prohibited from doing or saying anything which could influence the vote as the electorate prepares to go to the polls tomorrow.

While the campaign officially ended at midnight on Friday the terrorist attack in Paris, in which a police officer was killed, meant in reality it finished earlier. Several candidates cancelled their last meetings and appointments in light of the shocking news.

The Constitutional Council states that for 48 hours there is a ban on:

Official campaigning

Electoral meetings

Leaflet and other document distribution

Publishing news of a candidate

Updating websites about candidates

Phone calls and emails of a political/campaigning nature

Lastly it is forbidden for any candidate to tell the public about a new element of electoral debate which opponents are not able to respond before voting ends.

This ban comes to an end with the closure of the last polling station in mainland France on Sunday.

As for when we can expect the results of this round of the election, this year is a little different to previous ones as polling stations are closing later (7pm instead of 6pm) meaning there is less time to count votes.

The preliminary results are due to be announced via the media from 8pm on Sunday.

For the first time preliminary results are going to be taken from the first set of votes from a selection of 250 polling stations, instead of from exit polls.

If results are as close as predictions suggest some organisations intend to announce the top three candidates instead of the winning two, at 8pm Sunday.

Meanwhile - one Jim Bitterman, the Paris correspondent for CNN, has tried to explain the election via the illustration of a game of pétanque (similar to boules).

Each of the 11 boules represents a candidate who needs to get as close as possible to the jack (shown with a picture of the presidential palace).

And even the French think that’s too many boules to have in the air at election time, he joked…

See the video of Presidential Pétanque at Franceinfotv here.