The most unpredictable French presidential campaign in a generation is entering its final days with voters set to decide on Sunday between Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen.

By any measure, this has been a historic race for the Élysée Palace as traditional parties have been obliterated and voters are ready to embrace either a politically inexperienced ex-banker in Mr. Macron or a far-right populist in Ms. Le Pen. They finished first and second in the first round of voting on April 23, taking 23 per cent and 21.3 per cent respectively in a field of 11 candidates.

That wasn’t a convincing win for Mr. Macron, but he does lead current opinion polls in the final showdown against Ms. Le Pen, holding a near 20-point lead. But his support has softened in recent days and his backers lack the same enthusiasm as Ms. Le Pen’s. Both had a final chance to change voters’ minds Wednesday night when they went head-to-head in the campaign’s only television debate. Whoever wins, changes are coming to France and its place in Europe and globally.

Here’s a look at five things to expect from a Macron or Le Pen victory.

Mr. Macron has been campaigning as the ultimate outsider – “neither right nor left” – and heads a movement he launched a year ago called En Marche! He’s never run for office and, if he wins, he’d be the youngest president in French history at the age of 39. While he’s leading Ms. Le Pen, a recent poll also found little enthusiasm for him among his supporters. Roughly 60 per cent of those supporting Mr. Macron said they were voting for him only by default and 47 per cent said they didn’t like his personality. By contrast, 60 per cent of Ms. Le Pen’s supporters back her enthusiastically. Mr. Macron’s other main problem is that En Marche! lacks a political infrastructure which will make it hard for the party to win seats in the National Assembly elections in June. Without a majority of deputies, Mr. Macron will have a hard time getting much done. He’s promised that En Marche! will field a list of candidates, with many drawn from online applications to ensure a broad cross section. But legislative elections represent 577 individual constituency battles and a ground game is essential.

Mr. Macron has campaigned on a staunchly pro-European Union platform, promising to strengthen France’s role inside the EU. That has been welcome news to EU officials, who have taken a beating lately over Brexit and the rise of populism across Europe. But Mr. Macron has also talked lately about seeking major reforms to the EU, telling reporters this week that the EU can’t ignore the fact that a large percentage of French people are fed up with the union. While Europe is extremely important to France’s future, he said that “we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.” He added: “So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.” Some of his reforms have included a common budget for the 19 euro-zone countries as well as a euro-zone finance minister and a European Union defence force. That could be a tough sell in Germany, which has rejected those ideas in the past.

Changes in France, too

A career in investment banking and a brief spell as France’s economy minister under current President François Hollande have given Mr. Macron a decidedly pro-business outlook.

He’s calling for significant reforms to the country’s rigid labour market, something he tried to tackle during his two-year stint in cabinet, which ended in 2016 when he abruptly resigned. But even those measures, which included more Sunday shopping, were tame compared to the overhaul he’s planning which includes easing the clout of unions and making it easier for companies to hire and fire. He’s also called for cutting 120,000 civil servants, out of a total of six million, and slashing government spending by $54-billion. And while he won’t change France’s 35-hour work week, he wants to introduce reforms to give companies the flexibility to permit more overtime.

Mr. Macron is no fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has accused the Russians of hacking into En Marche!’s website. He’ll keep France a strong player in NATO and vows to ensure the country meets its NATO funding commitments. He can also be expected to stand pat on EU sanctions against Russia over Syria and Ukraine.

A win by Mr. Macron would be good for Canada. He backs free trade and would support France’s ratification of the Canada-EU trade deal. He’s also close in age and political outlook to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and he’s part of a wave of new young European in the political realm. That also includes 30-year-old Green Party Leader Jesse Klaver in the Netherlands; Belgium’s 41-year-old Prime Minister Charles Michel; and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who is 44.

Ms. Le Pen has been tapping into the anti-globalization and anti-EU sentiment in France that is a function largely of 10 years of economic stagnation. One of the key planks in her platform is to pull France out of the euro and return to the franc. It’s part of her overall campaign message of putting France first, and she argues that it is time for the country to set its own monetary policy and control its own currency. It’s a tricky sell since polls show most French people strongly support keeping the euro and virtually every economist says the country will face wrenching problems if it drops the currency.

There’s no question Ms. Le Pen isn’t keen on the EU and she has promised to hold a referendum on France’s membership in the union. She’s also vowed to appoint noted Euroskeptic Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a Paris-area deputy, as her prime minister if she is elected president. Mr. Dupont-Aignan is a staunch conservative who ran for president and finished a distant sixth with 4.7 per cent of the vote in the first round. He campaigned as an anti-EU candidate and supported Britain leaving the EU.

Ms. Le Pen has been a supporter of the Russian President and flew to Moscow to meet him during the campaign. There have been suggestions that Ms. Le Pen and the National Front, which have a hard time raising money, have turned to Mr. Putin for financial support. But there are political reasons as well and Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front in the 1970s, has been a long-time defender of Russia. Ms. Le Pen has also insisted that the West and Europe cannot afford to isolate Russia and Mr. Putin. She has defended the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and has been against EU sanctions aimed at Russia.

Ms. Le Pen has vowed to crack down on immigration and, during the campaign, she went so far as to call for a complete stop to all immigration. She has often linked immigration with terrorism but has lately toned down that argument and instead connected immigration with unemployment. Her France-first agenda calls for France to ignore so-called detachment rules in the EU that allow companies based in one EU member state to send workers to a branch plant in another member state as long as they pay the local minimum wage. Ms. Le Pen and others have argued that costs jobs in France. She would also impose a tax on companies that hire foreign workers.

Given her protectionist stance, the election of Ms. Le Pen would be a blow to the Canada-EU trade deal and she would likely push for France not to ratify the deal. And if she managed to pull France out of the EU, the union would likely collapse. That too would hurt Canadian trade since the EU is Canada’s second-largest trading partner.</s>PARIS: French centrist Emmanuel Macron and his far-right presidential rival Marine Le Pen clashed over terrorism, the economy and Europe Wednesday in a bad-tempered TV debate that laid bare their profoundly different visions for the country.

The duel ahead of Sunday´s election was billed as a confrontation between Macron´s call for openness and pro-market reforms and Le Pen´s France-first nationalism.

The tone was set in the opening minutes, with Le Pen branding the former economy minister and investment banker "the candidate of the elite" and the "darling of the system".

Macron replied that Le Pen, the 48-year-old scion of the National Front (FN) party, was "the heir of a system which has prospered from the fury of the French people for decades", adding: "You play with fear."

The 39-year-old frequently branded Le Pen a liar and even a "parasite of the system", who he said lived off the frustrations of France´s blocked political system.

On Europe, Le Pen accused Macron of being "submissive" towards German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying: "France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs Merkel."

She also accused Macron of an "indulgent attitude" towards Islamic fundamentalism and constantly sought to remind viewers of his role as a minister in unpopular President Francois Hollande´s Socialist government.

But Macron was in combative form throughout, repeatedly portraying Le Pen´s proposals as simplistic, defeatist or dangerous and targeting her proposals to withdraw France from the euro in particular.

The euro policy "was the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen´s programme," he said midway through the 140-minute debate.

Le Pen called the euro, shared by 19 countries in the European Union and blamed by some in France for a rise in prices, as "the currency of bankers, it´s not the people´s currency."

Trailing in the polls, the debate was probably her last chance to change the dynamics of the race ahead of the final weekend of a long and unpredictable campaign.

A poll by the Elabe group for the BFM channel immediately afterwards showed that 63 percent of people interviewed found Macron the most convincing versus 34 percent for Le Pen.

Macron would win around 59 percent to 41 percent if the vote were held now, surveys suggest, but previous debates during the rollercoaster French campaign have shifted public opinion.

The duel marked a new step into the mainstream for Le Pen, whose party was once considered by France´s political establishment to be an extremist fringe that should be boycotted.

When her father Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the final round of the presidential election in 2002, his conservative opponent Jacques Chirac refused to debate with him out of fear of "normalising hate and intolerance".

In the first round of the election on April 23, Marine Le Pen finished second scoring 21.3 percent after softening the FN´s image over the past six years -- but without fully removing doubt about the party´s core beliefs.

She sees her rise as the consequence of growing right-wing nationalism and a backlash against globalisation seen in the election of Donald Trump in the United States and Britain´s decision to leave the European Union.

"I am the candidate of the people of France such as we love it, of the nation that protects jobs, security, our borders," she said in her opening comments.

The debate was unlikely to have swayed any committed supporters of either candidate, but it could influence the roughly 18 percent of undecided voters and others who were planning to abstain.

Like much of the French press, daily Le Monde deplored a "brutal debate" that was "violent from start to finish".

Many supporters of Communist-backed candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came fourth in the first round, have said they will not vote on Sunday, comparing the final round as a choice between "the plague and cholera".

President Hollande and members of the government have led warnings about the risk of a Le Pen presidency.

"We are in a zone of absolute danger," warned Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem before the debate. "Do not play Russian roulette with our democracy."

Hollande told reporters that "we shouldn´t think the result is a foregone conclusion" and urged Macron, his former adviser and economy minister, to make clear his different vision of France in Europe and the world.

Macron quit the government last August to concentrate on his new centrist political movement En Marche, which has drawn 250,000 members in 12 months.

On Thursday, Macron will hold his final campaign meeting in the southwest town of Albi while Le Pen will have hers in Ennemain in the north.</s>Former U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron for France’s presidential election on Sunday in a video message in which he praised Macron for appealing “to people’s hopes and not their fears”.

“The French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about,” Obama said in the message, distributed by Macron’s camp.

Macron “has stood up for liberal values ... He is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears,” the former president said.

“I am supporting Emmanuel Macron to lead you forward,” Obama said, concluding his statement with the French title of Macron’s party “En Marche!” (Onwards!) and “Vive la France!”.

Macron is widely seen as the favourite to beat the National Front’s Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s runoff vote.</s>The pair clashed in a live televised debate tonight, just days before the final round of voting in the crunch election. Front-runner Mr Macron told right-wing firebrand Ms Le Pen she has no concrete solutions to France's economic problems. The En Marche! candidate said: "You're always talking about the past, but the problem is you have nothing to propose.

"Your strategy, quite simply, is to lie a lot. You list all the country's difficulties and problems, but provide no solutions. "The French people deserve better than this. They deserve the truth, not insinuations." He later said: "I treat the French like adults, I don't lie to them."

He also attacked her party, saying the Front National represents the "spirit of defeat" by capitalising on the anger of voters. Mr Macron said: "For 40 years in this country, we have had Le Pens as candidates in the presidential election. "In the face of the spirit of defeat, I carry a spirit of French conquest. France has always succeeded in the world."

Outspoken Marine Le Pen hit back, branding Mr Macron a "smirking banker" and the "candidate of globalisation and Uberisation". She also accused the centrist of patronising her, saying: "Don't talk to me like a teacher to a student." The comment is likely a thinly veiled reference to Mr Macron's wife, who used to be his drama teacher when he was 15.</s>The most unpredictable French presidential campaign in a generation is entering its final days with voters set to decide on Sunday between Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen.

By any measure, this has been a historic race for the Élysée Palace as traditional parties have been obliterated and voters are ready to embrace either a politically inexperienced ex-banker in Mr. Macron or a far-right populist in Ms. Le Pen. They finished first and second in the first round of voting on April 23, taking 23 per cent and 21.3 per cent respectively in a field of 11 candidates.

That wasn’t a convincing win for Mr. Macron, but he does lead current opinion polls in the final showdown against Ms. Le Pen, holding a near 20-point lead. But his support has softened in recent days and his backers lack the same enthusiasm as Ms. Le Pen’s. Both had a final chance to change voters’ minds Wednesday night when they went head-to-head in the campaign’s only television debate. Whoever wins, changes are coming to France and its place in Europe and globally.

Here’s a look at five things to expect from a Macron or Le Pen victory.

Mr. Macron has been campaigning as the ultimate outsider – “neither right nor left” – and heads a movement he launched a year ago called En Marche! He’s never run for office and, if he wins, he’d be the youngest president in French history at the age of 39. While he’s leading Ms. Le Pen, a recent poll also found little enthusiasm for him among his supporters. Roughly 60 per cent of those supporting Mr. Macron said they were voting for him only by default and 47 per cent said they didn’t like his personality. By contrast, 60 per cent of Ms. Le Pen’s supporters back her enthusiastically. Mr. Macron’s other main problem is that En Marche! lacks a political infrastructure which will make it hard for the party to win seats in the National Assembly elections in June. Without a majority of deputies, Mr. Macron will have a hard time getting much done. He’s promised that En Marche! will field a list of candidates, with many drawn from online applications to ensure a broad cross section. But legislative elections represent 577 individual constituency battles and a ground game is essential.

Mr. Macron has campaigned on a staunchly pro-European Union platform, promising to strengthen France’s role inside the EU. That has been welcome news to EU officials, who have taken a beating lately over Brexit and the rise of populism across Europe. But Mr. Macron has also talked lately about seeking major reforms to the EU, telling reporters this week that the EU can’t ignore the fact that a large percentage of French people are fed up with the union. While Europe is extremely important to France’s future, he said that “we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.” He added: “So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.” Some of his reforms have included a common budget for the 19 euro-zone countries as well as a euro-zone finance minister and a European Union defence force. That could be a tough sell in Germany, which has rejected those ideas in the past.

Changes in France, too

A career in investment banking and a brief spell as France’s economy minister under current President François Hollande have given Mr. Macron a decidedly pro-business outlook.

He’s calling for significant reforms to the country’s rigid labour market, something he tried to tackle during his two-year stint in cabinet, which ended in 2016 when he abruptly resigned. But even those measures, which included more Sunday shopping, were tame compared to the overhaul he’s planning which includes easing the clout of unions and making it easier for companies to hire and fire. He’s also called for cutting 120,000 civil servants, out of a total of six million, and slashing government spending by $54-billion. And while he won’t change France’s 35-hour work week, he wants to introduce reforms to give companies the flexibility to permit more overtime.

Mr. Macron is no fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has accused the Russians of hacking into En Marche!’s website. He’ll keep France a strong player in NATO and vows to ensure the country meets its NATO funding commitments. He can also be expected to stand pat on EU sanctions against Russia over Syria and Ukraine.

A win by Mr. Macron would be good for Canada. He backs free trade and would support France’s ratification of the Canada-EU trade deal. He’s also close in age and political outlook to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and he’s part of a wave of new young European in the political realm. That also includes 30-year-old Green Party Leader Jesse Klaver in the Netherlands; Belgium’s 41-year-old Prime Minister Charles Michel; and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who is 44.

Ms. Le Pen has been tapping into the anti-globalization and anti-EU sentiment in France that is a function largely of 10 years of economic stagnation. One of the key planks in her platform is to pull France out of the euro and return to the franc. It’s part of her overall campaign message of putting France first, and she argues that it is time for the country to set its own monetary policy and control its own currency. It’s a tricky sell since polls show most French people strongly support keeping the euro and virtually every economist says the country will face wrenching problems if it drops the currency.

There’s no question Ms. Le Pen isn’t keen on the EU and she has promised to hold a referendum on France’s membership in the union. She’s also vowed to appoint noted Euroskeptic Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a Paris-area deputy, as her prime minister if she is elected president. Mr. Dupont-Aignan is a staunch conservative who ran for president and finished a distant sixth with 4.7 per cent of the vote in the first round. He campaigned as an anti-EU candidate and supported Britain leaving the EU.

Ms. Le Pen has been a supporter of the Russian President and flew to Moscow to meet him during the campaign. There have been suggestions that Ms. Le Pen and the National Front, which have a hard time raising money, have turned to Mr. Putin for financial support. But there are political reasons as well and Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front in the 1970s, has been a long-time defender of Russia. Ms. Le Pen has also insisted that the West and Europe cannot afford to isolate Russia and Mr. Putin. She has defended the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and has been against EU sanctions aimed at Russia.

Ms. Le Pen has vowed to crack down on immigration and, during the campaign, she went so far as to call for a complete stop to all immigration. She has often linked immigration with terrorism but has lately toned down that argument and instead connected immigration with unemployment. Her France-first agenda calls for France to ignore so-called detachment rules in the EU that allow companies based in one EU member state to send workers to a branch plant in another member state as long as they pay the local minimum wage. Ms. Le Pen and others have argued that costs jobs in France. She would also impose a tax on companies that hire foreign workers.

Given her protectionist stance, the election of Ms. Le Pen would be a blow to the Canada-EU trade deal and she would likely push for France not to ratify the deal. And if she managed to pull France out of the EU, the union would likely collapse. That too would hurt Canadian trade since the EU is Canada’s second-largest trading partner.</s>(CNN) Far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron came out swinging from the start of Wednesday's only televised head-to-head debate of the presidential election.

Le Pen immediately blasted Macron as a cold banker who would worsen unemployment levels and allow the finance sector to plunder the economy. She called herself the "candidate of the people, of the France we love. "

Macron shot back that Le Pen lacked finesse and, for many years, has profited on the anger of the French people and promoted the "spirit of defeatism."

It's the last chance for either candidate to convince voters ahead of Sunday's election that they are qualified to lead a nation, which has become increasingly fractured over the current government's inability to cope with concerns around immigration, integration and an ailing economy.

The candidates sat across from each other at the Paris event -- often speaking over each other as moderators tried unsuccessfully to interrupt them.

At one point, Le Pen chastised her younger opponent.

"Don't play with me," she said. "Don't play teacher and pupil. It's not my thing."

Macron, she said, was the candidate of corporate interests.

"You defend private interests," she said.

Macron accused Le Pen of lacking a strategy to turn the economy around.

"We must give our small and medium-sized enterprises the opportunity to create more jobs," Macron said.

He added, "Your strategy is simply to say a lot of lies and say everything that is wrong."

The candidates traded barbs on the highly charged issue of terrorism.

Le Pen accused Macron of lacking firmness and of being "indulgent against Islamic terrorism." She vowed to immediately expel all foreigners identified on a terror watch list.

"We have to make sure the territory is protected," she said. "That is something I would do immediately once in power."

She added, "We have to eradicate ideology of Islamism in France."

Macron said the fight against terrorism would be his first priority, which he would address by increasing the resources of police and security forces and strengthening the enforcement of watch lists "even if it deprives people of some of their freedoms."

"Putting everyone in prison or sending them abroad does not make any sense to me," he said.

Polls suggest Macron will triumph in the election, but the specter of a mass voting boycott remains and it's something both candidates are desperate to address.

The debate marks the first time a French presidential runoff candidate has accepted an invitation to debate a far-right opponent.

In 2002, Le Pen's father and founder of the National Front, was denied the opportunity to debate Jacques Chirac after the eventual president refused to appear on stage with him, citing his opponent's extremist views.

How in touch are they with voters?

Macron, at 39, if successful would become the youngest president in the history of France and the nation's youngest leader since Napoleon.

Many see him as a millionaire, former investment banker and economy minister, who remains very much part of the "elite." They are unsure as to how Macron will actually govern given he is not backed by a political party.

He has struggled to connect with those living in rural France and the former industrialized areas which are now suffering with high unemployment.

However there are plenty of people who say they could never vote for Le Pen and since the conclusion of the first round of voting, she has been attempting to widen her appeal.

Last month, she announced that she had temporarily stepped down as leader of the National Front, painting herself as an independent candidate.

What the first round results showed is that she needs to reach out and perhaps play down more extreme parts of her campaign.

She has toned down the prospect of "Frexit" -- France's departure from the European Union -- and has also courted the voters of failed Republican candidate Francois Fillon.

She has also been outspoken on immigration, insisting she would curb migration to a net 10,000 people a year.

Her stance contrasts markedly with Macron, a pro-EU, pro-integration politician, who wants closer ties with Europe and has said France should do more to solve the migrant crisis.

The debate will take in 10 different areas of policy including the economy, security and Europe.</s>PARIS: French centrist Emmanuel Macron impressed more viewers than his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in a fiery TV debate, a poll found Thursday, underlining his status as the favorite for this weekend’s presidential runoff.

The candidates clashed repeatedly over terrorism, the economy and Europe in Wednesday’s hot-tempered debate that was watched by 16.5 million people.

A poll by French broadcaster BFMTV found that 63 percent of viewers thought Macron was the “most convincing” of the two, broadly mirroring the forecast result for the decisive election on Sunday.

The duel was billed as a confrontation between Macron’s call for openness and pro-market reforms and Le Pen’s France-first nationalism.

Le Pen branded the former economy minister and investment banker “the candidate of the elite” and the “darling of the system”.

Macron responded by describing the 48-year-old scion of the National Front (FN) as “the heir of a system which has prospered from the fury of the French people for decades”.

“The high priestess of fear is sitting before me,” he said.

The 39-year-old frequently branded Le Pen a liar and even a “parasite of the system”, who he said lived off the frustrations of France’s stalled political system.

On Europe, Le Pen accused Macron of being “submissive” towards German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying: “France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs Merkel.”

She also accused Macron of an “indulgent attitude” towards Islamic fundamentalism and constantly sought to remind viewers of his role as a minister in unpopular President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government.

But Macron was in combative form throughout, repeatedly portraying Le Pen’s stance as simplistic, defeatist or dangerous and targeting her proposals to withdraw France from the euro in particular.

The euro policy “was the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen’s program,” he said midway through the 140-minute debate.

Le Pen called the euro, shared by 19 countries in the European Union and blamed by some in France for a rise in prices, as “the currency of bankers, it’s not the people’s currency.”

Like much of the French press, Le Monde said the debate had been “brutal” and “violent from start to finish.”

Former Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls said Le Pen “showed her true face” in the debate and “it’s worrying.”

Trailing in the polls, the debate was probably Le Pen’s last chance to change the dynamics of the race ahead of the final weekend of a long and unpredictable campaign.

But the poll by Elabe for BFMTV showing that Macron had convinced 63 percent of viewers compared to 34 percent for Le Pen suggests she did little to win over new support.

Macron would win around 60 percent to 40 percent if the vote were held now, surveys suggest.

On Thursday, Macron was holding a campaign event in the southwest town of Albi while Le Pen was heading to Ennemain in the north.

The TV duel marked a new step into the mainstream for Le Pen, whose party was once considered by France’s political establishment to be an extremist fringe that should be boycotted.

When her father Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the final round of the presidential election in 2002, his conservative opponent Jacques Chirac refused to debate with him out of fear of “normalizing hate and intolerance”.

In the first round of the election on April 23, Marine Le Pen finished second scoring 21.3 percent after softening the FN’s image over the past six years—but without fully removing doubt about the party’s core beliefs.

She sees her rise as the consequence of growing right-wing nationalism and a backlash against globalization seen in the election of Donald Trump in the United States and Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union.

“I am the candidate of the people of France such as we love it, of the nation that protects jobs, security, our borders,” she said in her opening comments.

The debate was unlikely to have swayed any committed supporters of either candidate, but it could influence the roughly 18 percent of undecided voters and others who were planning to abstain.

Many supporters of Communist-backed candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came fourth in the first round, have said they will not vote on Sunday, comparing the final round as a choice between “the plague and cholera”.

Macron quit Hollande’s government last August to concentrate on his new centrist political movement En Marche, which has drawn 250,000 members in 12 months. AFP</s>(ALBI, France) — Fake news and alleged hacking attempts dominated France's tense presidential campaign Thursday with just two days left for independent Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen to win over voters before Sunday's high-stakes runoff.

Paris prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation Thursday into whether fake news is being used to influence the voting as the two candidates campaigned in opposite parts of the country.

The move came hours after Macron filed suit against unknown source "X'' after Le Pen suggested during their only one-on-one debate Wednesday night that the former banker could have an offshore account.

"I hope we won't find out you have an offshore account in the Bahamas," Le Pen said.

She appeared to be referring to two sets of apparent forgeries, published just hours before their heated showdown, that purported to show Macron was somehow involved with a Caribbean bank and a firm based on the island of Nevis.

Macron's camp said the former investment banker was victim of a "cyber-misinformation campaign." Speaking on France Inter radio, Macron blamed Le Pen for spreading "fake news" and said he never held a bank account "in any tax haven whatsoever."

"All this is factually inaccurate," Macron said.

On the campaign trail, Macron visited disgruntled workers Thursday at a glass factory in Albi near the southern city of Toulouse before holding his last campaign rally in which he called on voters from the left and the right to choose his reformist, pro-European platform.

Macron arrived to booing and slogan-shouting from dozens of protesting workers. But after 15 minutes of talking, the 39-year-old front-runner managed to calm some of their anger.

Union leader Michel Parraud called Macron "very kind and very polite," although he said he didn't think the pro-business centrist would do much for factory workers.

Macron pledged to "give strength back to the country" and "build a more efficient and fair society," speaking from an open-air stage in Albi's central square.

Le Pen, who spent Thursday in a small northern French village, quickly backed away from the suggestion the Macron might have an offshore account but prosecutors soon launched a probe into suspicions of forgery and the spreading false news in order to divert votes.

In the alleged documents, the "M'' in Macron's purported signature didn't match his genuine sign-off, and whoever wrote the documents appeared confused as to whether the firm was a limited company or a limited liability corporation. Metadata embedded in the document suggest it was created just before being posted online — undermining the anonymous poster's claim to have circulated the documents to "hundreds of French journalists" who had "all sat on this."

Asked Thursday on BFM TV whether she was formally accusing Macron of having a secret offshore account, Le Pen said: "Not at all. If I wanted to do so I would have done it yesterday. I've just asked him the question. If I had proof, I would have claimed it yesterday."

There are hints tying the faked documents to far-right circles in California. One document purports to have been drawn up under the laws of Nevis but actually draws some of its language from a guide to forming limited liability companies in California. The documents first appeared on Mixtape, a relatively new northern California-based file sharing service.

The Macron campaign identified the first tweet referring to the documents as coming from the Twitter account of Nathan Damigo, a far-right activist and convicted felon based in northern California. Damigo is known on social media for punching a female anti-fascist in the face at a Berkeley protest.

In a subsequent twist, Le Pen's campaign said a hacker confessed to repeatedly targeting its website. The statement, released Thursday, gave few details about the seriousness of the interference, which could range from attempts at defacing the website to flooding it with bogus traffic. It said the arrest took place this week.

Police referred questions to prosecutors, who didn't immediately return a message seeking comment. The Le Pen campaign also did not immediately respond.

There has been intense anxiety in France over the possibility that hackers could tamper with the presidential election this year — worries stoked by Russian meddling in the U.S. election last year.

Le Pen visited Ennemain, a tiny village of 230, for a festival Thursday in the "land of the forgotten" — the disillusioned voters at the center of her populist program. Hundreds packed a field bedecked with haystacks, food stands and an inflatable kids' ride near the small red-brick town hall.

Gaelle Vincent, 35, wore a French flag in her hair to hear Le Pen speak.

"People think little villages like us vote National Front because we don't like Arabs and are racist," Vincent told The Associated Press. "We're not racist. We have to preserve our land and our values."

The travails of ordinary people are a prime point in Le Pen's campaign against Macron, who she claims represents the urban elite.

Macron, meanwhile, got support from across the ocean.

In a message posted Thursday on Macron's Twitter account, former U.S. President Barack Obama said he was endorsing the centrist candidate "because of how important this election is."

"The French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about," Obama said. "I have admired the campaign that Emmanuel Macron has run. He has stood up for liberal values. He put forward the vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world. And he has committed to a better future for French people."

Obama ended his message with the words "En Marche" — which is the name of Macron's political movement and "Vive La France."</s>The stakes are high ahead of the contest between the pro-European Macron (left), a 39-year-old former economy minister, and far-right leader Le Pen (right), the 48-year-old scion of the National Front party. — File picPARIS, May 3 — French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen face off in a televised debate today which is expected to be bitter, personal and potentially decisive ahead of voting this weekend.

The stakes are high ahead of the contest between the pro-European Macron, a 39-year-old former economy minister, and far-right leader Le Pen, the 48-year-old scion of the National Front party.

Their starkly different views of Europe, immigration, the economy and French identity will be explored for the first time face-to-face following a week marked by bruising clashes between them.

Polls show Macron holding a hefty but narrowing lead in the polls of 59 per cent versus 41 per cent, but previous debates during the rollercoaster French campaign have quickly shifted public opinion.

“Our goal is to avoid being dragged into mud-slinging,” an aide to Macron told AFP on condition of anonymity ahead of the two hours and 20 minutes of exchanges between the candidates.

Whatever the outcome, the event marks a new step into the mainstream for Le Pen, whose party was once considered by France’s political establishment to be an extremist fringe of racists that should be boycotted.

When her father Jean-Marie made it into the final round of the presidential election in 2002, his conservative opponent Jacques Chirac refused to debate him out of fear of “normalising hate and intolerance”.

Fifteen years later, Le Pen scored 21.3 per cent in the first round of the French election on April 23 after successfully softening the FN’s image — but without fully removing doubt about the party’s core beliefs.

She has consistently sought to paint her ex-investment banker rival as the continuation of unpopular President Francois Hollande and an advocate of uncontrolled globalisation, the financial sector and immigration.

“If he finds himself in difficulty, he can always ask Francois Hollande to come and hold his hand. I won’t complain,” Le Pen wrote on Twitter yesterday in a message signed by her personally.

Her sister Marie-Caroline compared him to “a boy with a bucket and spade” after the last debate on April 5 before the first round of voting.

Trailing in the polls, the face-off will be Le Pen’s biggest chance in front of a television audience to impress millions of views or induce an error by her opponent that could tilt the election in her favour.

Macron is expected to be wary of making mistakes but has signalled his intention to take on Le Pen and challenge what he calls “dangerous” ideas to tackle the country’s deep economic and social problems.

“I want to go head-to-head, to get to the bottom of the issues, to show that these are false solutions,” the independent centrist told BFM television yesterday.

Recent doubt about Le Pen’s stance on withdrawing France from the euro common currency could also give him an opportunity to target what is seen as a risky and unpopular policy by many voters.

A close aide said Macron would home in on “the complete backtrack on leaving the euro”.

Le Pen’s niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen suggested at the weekend that talks about leaving the euro could take years, but Le Pen promised yesterday night to stick with her plans to introduce a new French franc if approved in a referendum.

“It’s not an unknown, it’s not a jump into the void,” she said during an interview with TF1 television.

In the face of the attacks on his background as a highly educated civil servant and banker, Macron is also expected to emphasise his personal story as a self-made man born to two doctors in provincial Amiens.

“I wasn’t born in a chateau,” he said this week, referring to the Le Pen family mansion on the outskirts of Paris where Marine and her sisters were brought up.

Sparks flew when they faced each other in the presidential debates before the first round of voting, when Le Pen memorably accused Macron of waffling for seven minutes and saying nothing.

Macron said she was transforming France’s millions of Muslims into “enemies of the republic.” — AFP</s>The French presidential candidate tore into the European Union as she went head-to-head with federalist Mr Macron tonight. And she again vowed to hold a Brexit-style referendum on the country's membership of the crumbling bloc. Ms Le Pen said: "I'm a European. I want to save Europe from the EU, which is killing it."

Taking aim at the crisis-hit single currency, the outspoken MEP added: "We must free ourselves from the Euro. "The Euro is the currency of the bankers. It is not the currency of the people. The franc is the currency of the people." She then vented her fury at unelected commissioners, saying: "No one knows their name or their face. And above all no one has voted for them."

Ms Le Pen admitted she was not sure when the Frexit referendum would be held if she beats Mr Macron in Sunday's poll. She said: "I don't want to create chaos, I don't want to rush things. If it's 10 months, it's 10 months." Last month, she suggested an in/out vote would be held just six months into her presidency.

Mr Macron, a former banker, attacked her plans to scrap the Euro, saying: "What you're proposing is a currency war. "We've already seen that, and it didn't solve mass unemployment. "Your plan is lethal in terms of purchasing power, in terms of competitiveness, in terms of France's capacity for being strong in the world."
Candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron face off in a debate.