(PARIS) — Amid heightened security, French voters began casting ballots for their next president Sunday in a first-round poll that’s seen as a litmus test for the spread of populism around the world and a vote on the future of Europe. More than 50,000 police and gendarmes were deployed to the 66,000 polling stations for Sunday’s election, which comes after Thursday’s deadly attack on the Champs-Elysees in which a police officer and a gunman were slain.