French election: Macron and Le Pen trade blows on final day of campaign

Campaign posters for French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in Eguisheim, eastern France, on April 21, 2022
Campaign posters for French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in Eguisheim, eastern France, on April 21, 2022 Copyright SEBASTIEN BOZON/ AFP
Copyright SEBASTIEN BOZON/ AFP
By Euronews
Share this articleComments
Share this articleClose Button
Copy/paste the article video embed link below:Copy to clipboardCopied

Opinion polls suggest the president has been pulling ahead of his far-right rival before Sunday's run-off vote, but many people remain undecided.

ADVERTISEMENT

Friday wraps up the last day of campaigning for the presidential election in France. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen were both out in force, hoping to win over those last remaining undecided voters.

Polls suggest President Macron has been pulling ahead and widening the gap between him and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. But Sunday's vote is expected to be closer than the pair's previous face-off in 2017.

"About 30 percent of the French electorate remains undecided, according to the latest polls, and many of the respondents to polls actually said they didn't even know if they were going to show up to vote on Sunday. So, of course, that is very significant," said Euronews international correspondent Anelise Borges in Paris.

Emmanuel Macron went to the town of Figeac in southern France on Friday. Relatively friendly territory, he topped the poll in the first round of the election on April 10, followed by hard left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

"Macron... no longer has the card of being the fresh-faced disruptor that will transform this country. He now has a record to defend, and it's been a turbulent five years, of course, because of the multitude of crises that we saw," Borges commented. 

Marine Le Pen visited one of her stronghold areas, in northern France.

"She was amongst her electorate, the working class voters who were telling Marine Le Pen about their grievances, about unemployment, about inflation and about the high cost of living here in this country," Anelise Borges said.

Macron is accused of being an elitist after five years in power, Le Pen of being radical and with little experience.

Watch Euronews's full report in the player above.

Share this articleComments

You might also like

Macron wins second term as president: How did election night unfold?

French election: What exactly is Marine Le Pen's stance on Russia and Vladimir Putin?

Marine Le Pen found guilty of defamation after accusing French NGO of smuggling migrants in Mayotte