Louvre grounds, where French presidential candidate and favourite Emmanuel Macron was planning to celebrate his possible victory on Sunday, was evacuated for security checks after a suspicious bag was found, police and a campaign official said.

"Following the detection of a suspicious bag, the 300 journalists (who were processing their accreditation), were asked to leave the area for security reasons and taken to a different area," said an official from Mr Macron"s campaign.

The precautionary measure was taken to carry out security checks, according to the police.

The courtyard in front of the landmark museum was where Mr Macron planned to celebrate his possible victory, his team confirmed on Thursday.

The alert comes as voters across the country cast their ballots in the final round of the presidential election.

France is still under a state of emergency brought in after the Paris attacks of November 2015.