Le Pen, Macron Face Off in Final French Presidential Debate

French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen face off in a final televised debate on Wednesday which is expected to be bitter, personal and potentially decisive ahead of the run-off vote this weekend.

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

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

Polls show Macron holding a hefty but narrowing lead in the polls of 59 percent versus 41 percent, 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 to 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 percent 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 rival as the continuation of unpopular outgoing Socialist President François Hollande and a champion of unbridled globalisation, the financial sector and immigration.

“If he finds himself in difficulty, he can always ask François Hollande to come and hold his hand. I won’t complain,” Le Pen tweeted archly on Tuesday.

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