Tens of thousands of French citizens living in the United Kingdom have turned out across the country to vote in one of the closest presidential elections of modern times.
The country is going to the polls to appoint the successor to Francois Hollande, who is not running after serving a single term in office.
There were already long queues around the block at the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle, near the Natural History Museum in Kensington, London, where 25 polling stations were set up to cater for an expected 50,000 voters.
The election comes against a backdrop of terrorist attacks in France, including one in Paris on Thursday in which a gunman carrying a note praising Islamic State killed a police officer before being shot dead himself.
British police officers were stationed around the polling stations in South Kensington as long queues wrapped around the block as people queued patiently - often with their children in tow - to cast their vote
Eleven candidates will contest Sunday's first round of voting, with the frontrunners including centre-left candidate Emmanuel Macron, the far-right Front National's Marine Le Pen, the Gaullist Francois Fillon and leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Edouard de Guitaut, volunteer president of one of the polling stations at the lycee, said there had been a surge in registrations since the Brexit vote in June last year.
He said: "The French population (in the UK) has increased, in fact it increased quite massively.
"The number of French people who registered to vote here and registered their details at the French consulate increased by about 10% in the last year, post Brexit vote.
"A lot of them were worried and wanted to feel they had some administrative contacts here that they could call on if they needed to.
"So, we have a big pool of voters, we expect 50,000 French citizens to vote here in South Kensington and in my polling station I expect about 1,200 voters compared to about 800 five years ago."
Polling stations have also been set up in Wembley, Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh for the large expatriate community to cast their votes, with 70 polling stations in total across the UK.
The last opinion polls before voting opened showed Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron narrowly ahead of Mr Fillon and Mr Melenchon, but it is being billed as one of the most unpredictable elections in generations.
British bookmaker Coral made the controversial far-right leader Ms le Pen the 4-6 favourite to take the most votes in the first round of voting.
If a candidate reaches 50% on Sunday they win, but if not the top two will go head-to-head in a decisive second round of voting on May 7.
Mr de Guitaut added: "It's the first time since the Second World War that you don't have the two main parties that are leading the polls.
"You have four candidates and it would be a very brave person or pundit to predict who the first two will be.
"I have an idea who one of them will be but I can't tell you, but we will know soon enough."