Hollande wins first round of French presidential elections - says exit poll

The incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy is widely expected to be ousted after just one fractious term in office (GETTY IMAGES)

Socialist Francois Hollande has won the first round of the French presidential poll, setting up a run-off with Nicolas Sarkozy who came second, according to an exit-poll.

With around 33% of the first-round vote counted, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current incumbent, was said to have polled 26.6% of the vote with his main challenger Hollande taking 27.5%.

In a surprise result Marine Le Pen, the anti-Muslism, anti-immigrant candidate was in a strong third place with 19.9 percent of the vote so far.

Marine Le Pen, said in an interview with the Associated Press last week that she would consider it a victory if she matched her father's first-round result in 2002.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front founder, polled 16.8 per cent of the vote that year and faced a second-round run-off against then-President Jacques Chirac.

In fourth place today was leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, followed by centrist Francois Bayrou and five other candidates with minimal support.

The run-off between the top two vote-getters is set for May 6.

The Interior Ministry said early turnout figures showed 70.6 per cent of the 44-million-plus voters cast ballots before 5pm (1500GMT) — this is lower than the 73.8 percent in 2007 at the same time, but more than in the four previous elections