France’s Jewish community leader urged to largely vote against the extreme-right National Front at the runoff presidential election on May 7.

Centrist independent and pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron and National Front leader Marine Le Pen led the first round of France's presidential election, qualifying for a second-round runoff in two weeks.

The Interior Ministry figures put Macron on 23.75 percent of votes and Le Pen on 21.53 percent, followed by rightist Francois Fillon at 19.91 percent and far-leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon on 19.64 percent.

In a statement, Crif, the umbrella representative group of Jewish institutions in France, expressed satisfaction that ‘’a candidate defending democratic and republican values is at the forefront’’. But it also notes ‘’with concern’’ that candidates of extreme parties represent more than 40 percent of the votes.

France is the third-largest home to Jews outside of the US and Israel.

Macron, a banker and former Economy Minister in the Socialist government led by Manuel Valls, became during the electoral campaign the subject of anti-Semitic cartoons and trolling online. One cartoon came from Fillon’s official campaign, which spread an image of Macron caricatured as hook-nosed as he carried a sickle and cigar. Macron called the image an antisemitic appeal to populist impulses.

Macron has appealed to Jewish community values shared with the French Republic of liberty, equality and fraternity.

“He knows there is a real danger from a double extremism – from the far-Right with Marine Le Pen, and from the far-Left,” said Gilles Taieb, a prominent member of the French Jewish community who joined Macron’s ‘’En Marche!’’ (Onwards) movement campaign. “He understands the specific needs of the Jewish community,” he added.

Macron considers Marine Le Pen’s National Front a threat to French Jews, woven from the same cloth as her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had been convicted several times for minimizing the Holocaust when he led the party before his daughter.

For years, Le Pen tried to distance herself from her father’s comments and to recruit French Jews around her open hostility to the Muslim community, but in recent weeks she has made comments of her own that suggest she shares her father’s views.

She declared that Jews will have to choose between retaining French citizenship and obtaining dual France and Israeli citizenship. As she strives to rid French Muslims of the right to wear the veil, she aqlso suggested that French Jews should “sacrifice” the kippa in their embrace of pure French secularity. And earlier this month, she denied France’s responsibility in a massive round-up of Jews in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

On Israel, where he was on a visit as Economy Minister in 2016, Macron has expressed his opposition to the anti-Israel BDS movement and said he would combat boycott efforts as president. He said also he would preserve dual citizenship for French-Israelis and encourage and protect those donning a kippa.

He also came out came out against efforts to unilaterally recognize a State of Palestine. Speaking to a Jewish radio in Paris last month, Macron broke with the government policy and said unilaterally recognizing Palestine "would not serve anyone" and claimed the move would "create instability."

"The key is recognizing two states in the area, with diplomatic balance work to build peace," he said. "If France commits to unilateral recognition of Palestinian we are contributing to an imbalance and will weaken France's ability to play a role in regional stability and in this conflict."

On a visit to Israel as Economy Minister in 2016, he praised the entrepreneurship spirit of the countrry. ''Israel is this small country which succeeded in having 5 percent of his GDP invested in R & D,'' he declared.

In Israel, where more than 200,000 French-Israeli Jews live with 80,000 registered voters, many of them tend to vote for the conservative The Republicans party led by Francois Fillon. According to reports, the former Prime Minister during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy got the most votes in Israel followed by Macron.