Centrist Emmanuel Macron has recorded a landslide victory against far-right populist opponent Marine Le Pen to become the President of the French Republic. Macron won 65% of the vote, according to the Ispos/Sopra Steria for French state TV estimate. The turnout at 5pm was estimated at 65.3% of the 47 million registered voters. Macron, 39, becomes the youngest president of France’s Fifth Republic. Marine Le Pen received 36%.

Unlike the exit polls in many countries, in which people are asked how they voted as they leave the polling station, these estimates – in use and steadily perfected since 1965 – are based on a vote count.

Pollsters select about 200 early closing polling stations around the country – in rural areas, small towns and urban agglomerations – carefully chosen to be as representative as possible of the country as a whole.
As soon as those stations have closed at 7pm, and as their votes are being counted, a polling official records, for a sizeable sample of the ballots, the number of votes cast for each candidate.
Those numbers are then run through a sophisticated computer program that adjusts them for past results and assorted variables, and produces a national vote estimate. These are not the official result, but they are also not an exit poll.
They are also very accurate, usually to within a percentage point.