France's Presidential Rivals Gird For High-stakes Debate

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen traded barbs Monday as they returned to campaigning for the French presidency ahead of a prime-time debate that is likely to prove decisive for next weekend's second-round run-off vote.

The two rivals held low-key events after a brief Easter pause before Wednesday's face-off, when the centrist Macron will defend his record over the past five years against his combative far-right rival.

It will be a rematch of their debate in 2017, when the same two finalists clashed at the same stage of the campaign. Analysts say that match was handily won by Macron, who was making his first-ever run for public office.

Le Pen, making her third attempt for the presidency, insists she is better prepared this time around.

"I'm very confident, and I think I'm going to win," the National Rally candidate said while posing for selfies with well-wishers at the sunlit village square in Saint-Pierre-en-Auge in Normandy, northern France.

"I hope this debate is carried out calmly... I hope it won't be what I've been hearing for the past week, a series of insults, fake news and excesses," she said.

Opinion polls have suggested for weeks that Macron has the edge. On Monday, an Ipsos-Sopra Steria survey of voter intentions had him winning by 56 percent. Ifop had him winning with 54.5 percent.

But allowing for margins of error, Macron knows there is no room for complacency. Polls have underestimated the results of far-right candidates in the past -- most notably in 2002, when Le Pen's father Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the presidential run-off against Jacques Chirac.

Macron's supporters -- and Macron himself -- were at pains to stress that nothing was in the bag.

In an interview with France 5 television Monday evening, Macron recalled the shock results that saw Donald Trump win the US presidency and Britain's exit from the European Union approved.

"So if you want to avoid the unthinkable or something that repulses you, choose for yourself," he said.

Macron took aim at Le Pen's proposal to hold constitutional referendums on tougher immigration laws; on her plan for "national priority" for French citizens for jobs and welfare benefits; and her backing for citizens' initiatives to propose and vote on legislation.

"She is implying that once elected, she believes she's above the Constitution since she can decide not to respect it by changing the rules," he told France Culture radio in an interview broadcast Monday.

But instead of focusing on immigration and the threat of Islamist extremism, Le Pen has insisted mainly on her plans to tackle rising prices, a key element of her strategy of presenting a more moderate face to voters.

Her team has played down in particular a proposed ban on the Islamic headscarf in public places, Le Pen acknowledging that it was a "complex problem" that would require parliamentary debate, and that "I'm not obstinate."

Le Pen also hit back at a report that the European Union's anti-corruption body OLAF had accused her and senior colleagues of embezzling more than 600,000 euros ($650,000) of EU funds during their time as euro-deputies.

"Low blows from the European Union, just a few days from the second round, I know all about them and I think the French aren't stupid," she said, adding that "I absolutely deny these allegations, which I wasn't even aware of."

Polls suggest that up to a quarter of the French electorate might not vote at all on Sunday, and much will also depend on the decisions of the millions of leftwing supporters of Jean-Luc Melenchon, who finished in a close third place in the first round on April 10.

The results of a survey published on Sunday carried out by Melenchon's France Unbowed party suggested that only a third of those who voted for him will back Macron to block a far-right presidency under Le Pen.

The rest preferred to return a blank or spoiled ballot, or simply to stay home on voting day next Sunday.

Melenchon is poised to loom large on the left ahead of parliamentary elections in June in which Macron is hoping to renew a majority if re-elected. He has pointedly refused to urge voters to back Macron, saying only that "not a single vote" should go to Le Pen.

But he also warned: "Not to choose, is to accept you are playing Russian roulette."