France's turbulent presidential election season is finally reaching the end game for Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. Here's what you need to know to get you to the final vote on Sunday, and a little beyond.

After Wednesday night's raucous debate, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have just one day left to campaign hard in a final bid to influence voters.

The final campaign stop for Macron was the town Rodez in southern France while Marine Le Pen caused a stir by announcing a surprise visit to Reims Cathedral in north eastern France.

The local mayor, a member of the Republicans party was not impressed, reminding the anti-EU far right leader that Reims was a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation and a city that was "turned towards Europe".

They continued their appearances on the media with Macron responding to questions on radio station RTL on Friday morning while Le Pen has been invited on channel M6 at 7.45pm.

The day before the result is announced is a chance for a bit of a break from the election circus for candidates and the press as both campaigning and publishing polls aren't allowed by French law. The official campaign ends at midnight on Friday and any French media caught publishing polls after that would be slapped with a €75,000 fine.

"Election silence" for a limited period of time before the vote is fairly common and used in countries such as Australia, Ireland, Spain and Italy, often as a "cooling off day" for reflection to create a voting environment that's a little less pressurized.

On the big day French people will head to the polls from 8am to 7pm, or until 8pm in the big cities. One petition is going around to get people to vote after 5pm on Sunday to send Macron a message of their reluctance to vote for him.

Where will the candidates be on Sunday?

The candidates themselves get to vote too. Macron will vote in the northern seaside town of Touquet where he and his wife Brigitte have long been registered. Le Pen will again vote in Hénin-Beaumont, the northern National Front-run town where she held her election night in the first round.

Macron has yet to announce where he will hold his election night event but it will be in Paris.

Le Pen's team said her event will be in the capital this time, to the relief of the scores of international journalists who had to figure out how to reach Hénin-Beaumont in the first round.

She will spend the evening at the Bois de Vincennes to the east of the city for the result, and a celebration afterwards (whether she wins or loses).

Both events will be packed with supporters, staff and hundreds of French and international media, including The Local France.

Join us from 3pm on Sunday for our live coverage.

The crucial result will be announced once again at 8pm, when the image of the next president of France will be shown on TV screens, prompting either wild celebrations or groans of despair among the public.

The photo below shows the moment François Hollande's face was broadcast when he won in 2012.

The result is based on the votes counted in 250 designated polling stations around the country that are considered to be have an accurate cross section of French voters. Hence the initial percentages given at 8pm can change slightly as the rest of the votes are counted.

However these days with social media and foreign media who don't stick to the strict rules it's hard to keep the results under wraps until 8pm.

Station Radio Londres is notorious for side-stepping the election silence rule and releasing polls and estimations before 8pm. The French public are told to be wary of the unofficial results and rumours spreading around on the election weekend.

The "official" final figures won't be announced until May 11th.

In 2012 thousands thronged into Place de la Bastille to celebrate François Hollande becoming the first Socialist president to be elected since 1988.

But it's unsure whether there will be such a spontaneous public outpouring of joy and emotion in Paris on Sunday, regardless of the result.

Le Pen plans to celebrate at the Bois de Vincennes to the east of Paris, whether she wins or not, while Macron is set to celebrate in the iconic Esplanade du Louvre where the pyramids are, but only if he becomes president.

Whoever wins on May 7th will be inaugurated between the 11th and the 14th May, the date when Francois Hollande's mandate runs out.

There will be a formal "passing over of powers" as well as the traditional trip to the City Hall in Paris.

But election season isn't quite over as the regional "legislative" elections begin their first round on June 11th, and second round on June 18th.

And then it's off to work for the next five years before we do it all again.</s>Voters across France are casting ballots in a presidential election run-off that could decide Europe’s future, choosing between independent Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen.

With Mr Macron the pollsters’ favourite, voting stations opened across mainland France at 8am under the watch of 50,000 security forces guarding against extremist attacks.

Polling agency projections and initial official results will be available when the final stations close at 8pm.

The unusually tense and unpredictable campaign ended with a hacking attack and document leak targeting Mr Macron on Friday night.

Either candidate would lead France into uncharted territory since neither comes from the mainstream parties that dominate parliament and have run the country for decades.</s>"Emmanuel Macron was never a kid like the others," says French journalist Anne Fulda, who has just written a biography about the presidential contender titled Emmanuel Macron, un jeune homme si parfait, translated as "a young man so perfect."

Macron loved to read and existed slightly in his own world, she says. He always felt at ease and mixed easily with adults. Macron's most formative relationship growing up was with his grandmother.

"He had a very special link with her because he saw her every day when he was a small kid," says Fulda. "Even when he was a banker at Rothschild, he spoke to her every day. But not two minutes. An hour. It was a very singular link. And this story began when he was 5 years old."

Macron, 39, has said that it was his grandmother who helped him believe in his political destiny.

At 15, Macron fell in love with his high school drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière. She was married with three children — and 24 years his senior.

Now 64, she is married to Macron and set to become the first lady of France.

In a recent television documentary, Brigitte Auzière Macron says she never felt the age difference between them. In a recent documentary on the young politician, she describes the bond that first formed when they worked together to rewrite a play.

"We wrote together every Friday," she says in the film, "and little by little, I became completely subjugated by the intelligence of this young man. His mind is so full and perfect. His capacities are completely beyond any normal human being's."

Years later, Auzière confided to a friend that she had the feeling she was "working with Mozart."

Macron's parents were shocked when they found out about the relationship with his teacher. They asked Auzière not to see their son again until he was 18.

Biographer Fulda says the story is like something right out of the classic French novels by Balzac or Stendhal that Macron devoured as a child. Fulda says his relationship with Auzière caused a complete scandal in the small, provincial city of Amiens in northern France.

"Everybody knows what everybody does, everybody speaks, so it was difficult to live this story in a small city like Amiens," she says, adding that it's "a melodramatic story."

Macron's parents sent him to Paris to finish secondary school at one of the country's best high schools. But his bond with his former teacher only became stronger.

"They spoke for hours on the phone every day," says Fulda. "And Emmanuel told Brigitte, 'I will be back for you. Whatever you do, I will marry you.' "

In a video from the reception, the handsome young groom thanks the guests for their support over the previous 13 years.

"We're not exactly a normal couple," he says. "But you have accepted us and stood by us — and we exist, thanks to you."

Macron has said his parents took the relationship badly, but he was strong in the face of their doubts.

Fulda says the experience is important in showing who Macron is today.

"It tells us about his determination, very big determination," she says. "And his desire to choose his life. And to be free."

Macron has always gone against convention, Fulda notes.

"To decide to run for president when nobody knows you — it's quite incredible," she says. "It's a sort of way to act against the system."

French voters go to the polls Sunday to choose their next president. Unless there are huge surprises, Macron is expected to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

He has never been elected to political office. Those who know him say his trajectory is a combination of brilliance, ambition and luck.

Alain Minc, a business consultant who has known Macron for 15 years, says when Macron decided he wanted to seek the presidency, Minc advised him to prepare his presidential bid for the next time around.

"I told him, 'You want to go too quickly,' " says Minc. "I told him, 'You should not run in 2017, you should run in 2022 and you should prepare it now.' And his answer was fascinating. He told me, 'You are describing the world of yesterday. Now it doesn't work like that. You are wrong.' And he was right!"

Even though he's a political outsider, Macron is a pure product of the French system. He went to all the best French schools, including the esteemed École Nationale d'Administration, whose alumni include virtually every French president.

He worked as an investment banker and was an economic counselor at the Elysèe Palace when President Francois Hollande tapped him to be economy minister. Macron stepped down from his post two years later, disillusioned by what he felt was a dysfunctional system. He founded a political party and launched his presidential bid last August.

Macron's explosion onto the French political scene is as unusual as his personal life. In recent months, he's addressed packed rallies across the country. His message of engagement is in sharp contrast to his opponent's. Le Pen says she wants to close borders and close off from the world to protect the French from globalization and terrorism.

In a televised debate this week, Macron told Le Pen he rejected her message of defeatism.

"I bring the spirit of French conquest," he said. "France has always succeeded because it is part of the world. Our language, history and civilization shine out across every continent. And this global force is why we are the world's fifth largest economic power."

Macron's wife sits in the front row of every rally. The two are said to have an intimate personal and political relationship. He calls her his "equilibrium." He is also said to have an affectionate bond with her three grown children and seven grandchildren.

Consultant Minc says he's never met someone so lucky.

"I always tell him, you must have a contract with God," he says.

Minc says Macron's fortunes rose as every mainstream and establishment politician was swept away. But Macron knows how to seize his chance.

"When fate knocked, he was bold enough to take advantage of it," says Minc. "He was talented and lucky. That was exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte asked from his generals. Talent and luck."</s>PARIS (REUTERS) - Independent centrist French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron extended his lead in the polls over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Friday (May 5), the final day of a tumultuous election campaign that has turned the country's politics upside down.

The election is seen as the most important in France for decades with two diametrically opposed views of Europe and France's place in the world at stake.

The National Front's Le Pen would close borders and quit the euro currency, while Mr Macron, who has never held elected office, wants closer European cooperation and an open economy.

According to an Elabe poll for BFM TV and L'Express, Mr Macron will get 62 per cent of the votes in the second round compared to 38 per cent for Ms Le Pen, an increase of three points for the centrist candidate compared to his projected score in the last Elabe poll.

The showing is among his best since nine other candidates were eliminated in the first round on April 23.

The survey was carried out after a rancorous final televised debate between the two contenders on Wednesday, which Mr Macron was seen as having won by French viewers, according to two recent polls.

A separate poll by Odoxa said a quarter of the French electorate was likely to abstain in Sunday's vote, many of them left-wing voters disappointed after their candidates missed reaching the runoff.

The projected abstention rate would be the second-worst for a presidential election runoff since 1965, underscoring the disillusionment of many voters at the choice they now face.

The turnout rate for the first round of the election was close to 78 per cent, according to the interior ministry.

The poll for Franceinfo radio showed 69 per cent of abstaining voters will do so reluctantly, refusing to choose between Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen. Many voted for the more leftist candidates eliminated in the first round.

A third of the supporters of defeated far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who placed fourth in the first round, said they were evenly opposed to Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen, according to the poll.

It also showed that voters found Mr Macron more convincing than Ms Le Pen in Wednesday's televised debate, confirming the general impression conveyed in earlier polls and reinforcing Mr Macron's status as the favourite to win on Sunday.</s>According to Le Parisien, En Marche! leader and ex-Economics Minister Emmanuel Macron is most likely to win, but with different results. One possibility is that he comes out on top with 65 percent of votes against 35 percent gone to Le Pen.

An IFOP poll put Macron in the lead with 63 percent against 37 percent for Le Pen, and an IPSOS Sopra Steria survey predicted that Le Pen would end up with 38.5 percent against Macron’s 61.5.

In another “possible,” Emmanuel Macron could repeat Jacques Chirac’s resounding 80-20 percent victory over Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the 2002 presidential runoff.

If Marine Le Pen loses out with 45 percent against Macron’s 55, this could amount to “a defeat with a taste of victory.”

Fifty-five percent is enough for Macron to set foot in the Elysee Palace, but not enough to run the country, Le Parisien speculated.

This would come as an earthquake and not only a political one at that,” le Parisien wrote. It added that winning the Elysee Palace would be only the beginning because, to form a working Cabinet, Le Pen would have to win the parliamentary election in June.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron took the top spot in the first round of the French presidential election on April 23, gaining 24.1 percent of votes.

His main rival, far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, came in second with 21.3 percent.

Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!</s>In the shadow of a hacking attack on the leading candidate, French voters on Sunday went to the polls in an election that will decide not only the future of France, but possibly the European Union.

The most bitterly contested and turbulent political campaign France had seen in decades pitted far-right leader Marine Le Pen against the centrist candidate and target of the hack, Emmanuel Macron.

On Sunday morning, the two candidates voted in their home constituencies far from Paris.

Macron and his wife Brigitte were greeted by a crowd of around 500 people as they arrived at their local polling station in the chic seaside resort of Le Touquet in northwest France, where they have a second home. The favorite to win this fiercely contested election, Macron shook hands with locals before casting his own vote.

Le Pen returned to her National Front heartland at Henin-Beaumont in the country’s post-industrial northern rust belt.

Outgoing president Socialist François Hollande voted in his constituency of Tulle in the rural Correze region of central France.

The unknown factor is the number of France’s 47 million voters who plan to abstain or cast a blank or spoiled vote. The conservative Les Republicans candidate François Fillon advised supporters to vote for Macron after his defeat in the first round vote two weeks ago, as did the Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon, who finished a humiliating fifth in the first vote. However, the hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon of La France Insoumise (Unbowed France), who finished fourth with around 7 million votes refused to give his supporters advice on how to vote Sunday except to urge them “not to give a single vote” to Le Pen.

A final abstention rate of more than 25% will favor Le Pen. Polls have suggested the number of angry and disappointed voters who choose to vote blank or spoil their ballot could reach a record 3 million. Many on the left wing of French politics find Le Pen’s far-right populist and racist rhetoric unpalatable but cannot bring themselves to vote for the neo-liberal Macron, so they feel disenfranchised by this final round vote but still want their voice heard.

Education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem reminded voters in an interview with Liberation newspaper that “not voting against the FN, even with the best intentions in the world, means not voting against the FN”.

Le Pen has championed a populist anti-Europe, anti-globalization, anti-immigrant agenda and proposed a “Brexit”-style referendum on bolting from the EU. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the far-right National Front in the 1970s.

Macron, a former investment banker with Rothschild’s, is economically liberal, socially progressive, pro-Europe and internationally minded. If he wins, Macron would become, at 39, France’s youngest president.

His rise in French politics has been startling. When outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande named him finance minister in August 2014, French media headlined articles with a question: “Who is Emmanuel Macron?”

Macron, who ran as an independent, led a field of 11 candidates with 23.8% in the first round of voting April 23. He was followed by Le Pen with 21.6%.

On Friday the last opinion poll by Ipsos showed Macron winning 63% of votes and Le Pen 37%. But that was before the computer hack, and its impact was impossible to predict. The only certainty was that it made an already bitter campaign even more acrimonious.

Just before a Friday midnight deadline that requires candidates to stop campaigning, thousands of Macron campaign documents were leaked — reportedly with fake documents mixed in. His campaign denounced the leak as a “real attempt to disrupt the French presidential election.”

During the so-called election pause, candidates are banned from making any statement or comment until voting closes at 8 p.m. Sunday. That left Macron unable to respond Saturday.

But late Friday, just before the pause took effect, Macron’s En Marche! (Onward!) movement released a statement saying fake papers had been mixed in with real emails, financial records and other campaign documents to “spread doubt and disinformation.”

Le Monde newspaper said the leaked documents were spread quickly by Le Pen supporters. National Front Vice President Florian Philippot, a close advisor to Le Pen, wrote on Facebook: “With MacronLeaks are we learning something investigative journalists have deliberately hushed up?”

Security, meanwhile, was a prime concern of authorities, given France’s recent history with terrorism. Thousands of police officers and security personnel were deployed across the country.

Authorities vow to investigate hacking attack in French presidential campaign as voting begins Sunday

France's Macron and Le Pen slug it out in no-holds-barred debate before Sunday's presidential election</s>"Emmanuel Macron was never a kid like the others," says French journalist Anne Fulda, who has just written a biography about the presidential contender titled Emmanuel Macron, un jeune homme si parfait, translated as "a young man so perfect."

Macron loved to read and existed slightly in his own world, she says. He always felt at ease and mixed easily with adults. Macron's most formative relationship growing up was with his grandmother.

"He had a very special link with her because he saw her every day when he was a small kid," says Fulda. "Even when he was a banker at Rothschild, he spoke to her every day. But not two minutes. An hour. It was a very singular link. And this story began when he was 5 years old."

Macron, 39, has said that it was his grandmother who helped him believe in his political destiny.

At 15, Macron fell in love with his high school drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière. She was married with three children — and 24 years his senior.

Now 64, she is married to Macron and set to become the first lady of France.

In the recent television documentary, Brigitte Auzière Macron says she never felt the age difference between them. In a recent documentary on the young politician, she describes the bond that first formed when they worked together to rewrite a play.

"We wrote together every Friday," she says in the film, "and little by little, I became completely subjugated by the intelligence of this young man. His mind is so full and perfect. His capacities are completely beyond any normal human being's."

Years later, Auzière confided to a friend that she had the feeling she was "working with Mozart."

Macron's parents were shocked when they found out about the relationship with his teacher. They asked Auzière not to see their son again until he was 18.

Biographer Fulda says the story is like something right out of the classic French novels by Balzac or Stendhal that Macron devoured as a child. Fulda says his relationship with Auzière caused a complete scandal in the small, provincial city of Amiens in northern France.

"Everybody knows what everybody does, everybody speaks, so it was difficult to live this story in a small city like Amiens," she says, adding that it's "a melodramatic story."

Macron's parents sent him to Paris to finish secondary school at one of the country's best high schools. But his bond with his former teacher only became stronger.

"They spoke for hours on the phone every day," says Fulda. "And Emmanuel told Brigitte, 'I will be back for you. Whatever you do, I will marry you.' "

In a video from the reception, the handsome young groom thanks the guests for their support over the previous 13 years.

"We're not exactly a normal couple," he says. "But you have accepted us and stood by us — and we exist, thanks to you."

Macron has said his parents took the relationship badly, but he was strong in the face of their doubts.

Fulda says the experience is important in showing who Macron is today.

"It tells us about his determination, very big determination," she says. "And his desire to choose his life. And to be free."

Macron has always gone against convention, Fulda notes.

"To decide to run for president when nobody knows you — it's quite incredible," she says. "It's a sort of way to act against the system."

French voters go to the polls Sunday to choose their next president. Unless there are huge surprises, Macron is expected to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

He has never been elected to political office. Those who know him say his trajectory is a combination of brilliance, ambition and luck.

Alain Minc, a business consultant who has known Macron for 15 years, says when Macron decided he wanted to seek the presidency, Minc advised him to prepare his presidential bid for the next time around.

"I told him, 'You want to go too quickly,' " says Minc. "I told him, 'You should not run in 2017, you should run in 2022 and you should prepare it now.' And his answer was fascinating. He told me, 'You are describing the world of yesterday. Now it doesn't work like that. You are wrong.' And he was right!"

Even though he's a political outsider, Macron is a pure product of the French system. He went to all the best French schools, including the esteemed École Nationale d'Administration, whose alumni include virtually every French president.

He worked as an investment banker and was an economic counselor at the Elysèe Palace when President Francois Hollande tapped him to be economy minister. Macron stepped down from his post two years later, disillusioned by what he felt was a dysfunctional system. He founded a political party and launched his presidential bid last August.

Macron's explosion onto the French political scene is as unusual as his personal life. In recent months, he's addressed packed rallies across the country. His message of engagement is in sharp contrast to his opponent's. Le Pen says she wants to close borders and close off from the world to protect the French from globalization and terrorism.

In a televised debate this week, Macron told Le Pen he rejected her message of defeatism.

"I bring the spirit of French conquest," he said. "France has always succeeded because it is part of the world. Our language, history and civilization shine out across every continent. And this global force is why we are the world's fifth largest economic power."

Macron's wife sits in the front row of every rally. The two are said to have an intimate personal and political relationship. He calls her his "equilibrium." He is also said to have an affectionate bond with her three grown children and seven grandchildren.

Consultant Minc says he's never met someone so lucky.

"I always tell him, you must have a contract with God," he says.

Minc says Macron's fortunes rose as every mainstream and establishment politician was swept away. But Macron knows how to seize his chance.

"When fate knocked, he was bold enough to take advantage of it," says Minc. "He was talented and lucky. That was exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte asked from his generals. Talent and luck."</s>PARIS (AP) — Emmanuel Macron’s campaign press office says the courtyard outside the Louvre museum where the centrist French presidential candidate has planned to celebrate election night has been evacuated because of a security alert.

Campaign spokeswoman Pauline Calmes told The Associated Press that the Esplanade du Louvre, in downtown Paris, was evacuated on Sunday as a precaution. She did not specify the nature of the threat, but says police ordered the evacuation.

Macron picked the dignified internal courtyard of the renowned palace-turned-museum as the location for his celebration party.

The Louvre already was being heavily guarded after an extremist attacker targeted soldiers near the museum during the presidential campaign.

Voters across France have been casting ballots in the presidential election runoff that could decide Europe’s future, choosing between independent Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen.

The unusually tense and unpredictable French presidential campaign ended with a hacking attack and document leak targeting Macron on Friday night. France’s government cybersecurity agency is investigating the hack.

Either candidate would lead France into uncharted territory, since neither comes from the mainstream parties that dominate parliament and have run the country for decades.

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• Is your house spying on you?</s>PARIS (AP) — The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said it suffered a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack and document leak that it called a bid to destabilize Sunday's presidential runoff.

His far-right rival Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, told The Associated Press that she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in the high-stakes vote that could change Europe's direction.

Fears of hacking, fake news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized — until late Friday's admission by Macron's campaign that it had suffered a coordinated online pirate attack had led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. It was unclear who was behind the hack and the leak.

A campaign blackout starting minutes after the Macron team announcement means that Le Pen's campaign can't legally comment on the leak.

In a statement, Macron's En Marche movement said the hack took place a few weeks ago, and that the leaked documents have been mixed with false documents to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize Sunday's presidential runoff. Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks, and also said that authentic documents were mixed with false documents.

The timing of the leak could be seen as either bizarre or inspired.

The documents' release just before France enters a roughly two-day-long blackout - during which politicians, journalists and even ordinary citizens are meant to pull back from any public election talk to avoid swaying the vote - means that the leak may have very little impact beyond the overheated world of Twitter and Reddit.

On the other hand, the messages' release just before France's political machinery shuts down for the weekend might mean that talk of the leak - regardless of its veracity - will dominate dinner table conversations as French voters make up their minds Saturday.

The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election. It's a stark choice: Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform, or Macron's progressive, pro-EU stance.

Tensions marred the race right to the end.

France's presidential voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot "systematically torn up."

Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims.

The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics as usual.

Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign.

In an interview with The Associated Press in the final hours of a hostile, topsy-turvy campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, "we changed everything." She claimed an "ideological victory" for her populist, anti-immigrant worldview.

"Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born," she told AP in her campaign headquarters. Her party "imposed the overhaul" of French politics and set the tone of the election, she said.

The 39-year-old Macron, too, played a key role in upending France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.

Voters liked the idea, and chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote, dumping the traditional left and right parties that have governed modern France. Le Pen said those parties have been "blackballed."

Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

Students protested both presidential candidates Friday by blocking high schools and marching through Paris.

Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers Friday at the Reims cathedral. She left via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself and diving into a black car.

Le Pen denounced her critics for disrupting a sacred place during her final campaign stop. The site has special meaning for her National Front party because it's the cathedral where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc — the party's icon — at a time of war and division.

In the AP interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can bring the divided country together if elected.

"Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place ... we must re-weave the links among people." She said.

The pro-business Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first-round, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers.

Violent protests erupted in Paris earlier this week against both candidates, with several police officers injured. And critics decried the bitter tone of Wednesday night's presidential debate.

Le Pen acknowledged to AP that she became angry at the debate but said she was merely channeling the mood of France.

Macron acknowledged the French are exasperated by the government's ineffectiveness, but he dismissed Le Pen's vision of an infuriated country.

She "speaks for no one. ... Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred," Macron told RTL radio.</s>"Emmanuel Macron was never a kid like the others," says French journalist Anne Fulda, who has just written a biography about the presidential contender titled Emmanuel Macron, un jeune homme si parfait, translated as "a young man so perfect."

Macron loved to read and existed slightly in his own world, she says. He always felt at ease and mixed easily with adults. Macron's most formative relationship growing up was with his grandmother.

"He had a very special link with her because he saw her every day when he was a small kid," says Fulda. "Even when he was a banker at Rothschild, he spoke to her every day. But not two minutes. An hour. It was a very singular link. And this story began when he was 5 years old."

Macron, 39, has said that it was his grandmother who helped him believe in his political destiny.

At 15, Macron fell in love with his high school drama teacher, Brigitte Auzière. She was married with three children — and 24 years his senior.

Now 64, she is married to Macron and set to become the first lady of France.

In the recent television documentary Emmanuel Macron — The Strategy of a Star, Brigitte Auzière Macron says she never felt the age difference between them. She describes the bond that first formed when they worked together to rewrite a play.

"We wrote together every Friday," she says in the film, "and little by little, I became completely subjugated by the intelligence of this young man. His mind is so full and perfect. His capacities are completely beyond any normal human being's."

Years later, Auzière confided to a friend that she had the feeling she was "working with Mozart."

Macron's parents were shocked when they found out about the relationship with his teacher. They asked Auzière not to see their son again until he was 18.

Biographer Fulda says the story is like something right out of the classic French novels by Balzac or Stendhal that Macron devoured as a child. Fulda says his relationship with Auzière caused a complete scandal in the small, provincial city of Amiens in northern France.

"You've got to imagine that this story begins in a provincial city, where everybody knows what everybody does, everybody speaks," says Fulda. "So it's difficult to live this story in a small city like Amiens. And especially because Brigitte Macron comes from a prominent and well-established family that has a chain of shops specializing in macaroons."

Macron's parents sent him to Paris to finish secondary school at one of the country's best high schools. But his bond with his former teacher only became stronger.

"They spoke for hours on the phone every day," says Fulda. "And Emmanuel told Brigitte, 'I will be back for you. Whatever you do, I will marry you.' "

In a video from the reception, the handsome young groom thanks the guests for their support over the previous 13 years.

"We're not exactly a normal couple," he says. "But you have accepted us and stood by us — and we exist, thanks to you."

Macron has said his parents initially "took it badly."

"Strength of conviction was required," he told Fulda. "They thought on several occasions that it was going to stop and naturally did everything to encourage that. ... You have to learn to fight for things, to bear the burden and have a life which does not in any way correspond to other peoples' lives."

Fulda says the experience is important in showing who Macron is today.

"It tells us about his determination, very big determination," she says. "And his desire to choose his life. And to be free."

Macron has always gone against convention, Fulda notes.

"To decide to run for president when nobody knows you — it's quite incredible," she says. "It's a sort of way to act against the system."

French voters go to the polls Sunday to choose their next president. Unless there are huge surprises, Macron is expected to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

He has never been elected to political office. Those who know him say his trajectory is a combination of brilliance, ambition and luck.

Alain Minc, a business consultant who has known Macron for 15 years, says when Macron decided he wanted to seek the presidency, Minc advised him to prepare his presidential bid for the next time around.

"I told him, 'You want to go too quickly,' " says Minc. "I told him, 'You should not run in 2017, you should run in 2022 and you should prepare it now.' And his answer was fascinating. He told me, 'You are describing the world of yesterday. Now it doesn't work like that. You are wrong.' And he was right!"

Even though he's a political outsider, Macron is a pure product of the French system. He went to all the best French schools, including the esteemed École Nationale d'Administration, whose alumni include virtually every French president.

He worked as an investment banker and was an economic counselor at the Elysèe Palace when President Francois Hollande tapped him to be economy minister. Macron stepped down from his post two years later, disillusioned by what he felt was a dysfunctional system. He founded a political party and launched his presidential bid last August.

Macron's explosion onto the French political scene is as unusual as his personal life. In recent months, he's addressed packed rallies across the country. His message of engagement is in sharp contrast to his opponent's. Le Pen says she wants to close borders and close off from the world to protect the French from globalization and terrorism.

In a televised debate this week, Macron told Le Pen he rejected her message of defeatism.

"I bring the spirit of French conquest," he said. "France has always succeeded because it is part of the world. Our language, history and civilization shine out across every continent. And this global force is why we are the world's fifth largest economic power."

Macron's wife sits in the front row of every rally. The two are said to have an intimate personal and political relationship. He calls her his "equilibrium." He is also said to have an affectionate bond with her three grown children and seven grandchildren.

Consultant Minc says he's never met someone so lucky.

"I always tell him, you must have a contract with God," he says.

Minc says Macron's fortunes rose as every mainstream and establishment politician was swept away. But Macron knows how to seize his chance.

"When fate knocked, he was bold enough to take advantage of it," says Minc. "He was talented and lucky. That was exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte asked from his generals. Talent and luck."
Voting begins in territories and diplomatic missions west of Metropolitan France for the second round of the presidential election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.