Macron stretches lead as
French presidential
campaign enters final day
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* Four polls say Macron leads Le Pen
62 pct-38 pct
* Score is Macron's best since before
first round
* Le Pen says her goal is to win
* Separate poll puts abstention rate at
a quarter of voters (Adds market context,
Le Pen quote)
By Mathieu Rosemain and Andrew Callus
PARIS, May 5 (Reuters) - Centrist French
presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron
extended his lead in the polls over his
far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Friday,
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 independent Macron, who has never
held elected office, wants closer European
cooperation and an open economy. The
candidates of France's two mainstream
parties were both eliminated in the first
round on April 23.
Four new polls showed Macron on track
to win 62 percent of the votes in the second
round compared to 38 percent for Le Pen,
his best score in a voting survey by a
major polling organisation since nine
other candidates were eliminated in the
first round on April 23. A fifth poll
showed him on 61.5 percent.
Pollsters said Macron had been boosted
by his performance in a rancorous final
televised debate between the two contenders
on Wednesday, which the centrist was judged
by French viewers to have won, according
to two surveys.
Macron's strong showing in the debate,
and another poll this week showing his
En Marche! (Onwards!) movement likely
to emerge as the biggest party in June
legislative elections, have lifted the mood
among
investors worried about the upheaval
a Le Pen victory could cause.
The gap between French and German
10-year government borrowing costs hit
a new six-month low on Friday.
European shares eased after a week of
gains that were partly driven by easing
political worries in France.
"Despite that almost nobody expects a
surprise, meaning Macron is the
overwhelming favourite to win and
become the new French president,
traders seem to favour (taking) a bit
of money off the table," said City of
London Markets trader Markus Huber.
LE PEN BOOED
Le Pen was booed by several dozen
protesters, including some holding
Macron posters, as she visited the
cathedral in Reims, northern France,
where French kings were crowned in
the Middle Ages.
Paris's police chief called emergency talks
on security before the election after
Greenpeace activists scaled the Eiffel
Tower on Friday and unfurled a
political banner.
Separately, police arrested a man
suspected of having radical Islamist
beliefs near an air base at Evreux, western
France, during the night after spotting a
suspicious vehicle, police and judicial
sources said. Counter-terrorism prosecutors
were investigating.
Security is a key election issue after attacks
by militant Islamists killed more than 230
people in the past two years.
Macron was already looking ahead to being
in power, telling RTL radio he had decided
who would be his prime minister if he wins.
He did not reveal a name, saying he would
only announce the make-up of his
government after he took office.
The anti-immigration, anti-EU Le Pen
was not giving up.
"My goal is to win this presidential
election," she said on RTL radio.
"I think that we can win."
Le Pen was criticised by some pundits
for her aggressive approach to Wednesday's
presidential debate, seeing this as a
setback to her attempts to rid the party
of the fringe, extremist image it acquired
under the nearly 40-year leadership of her
father, Jean-Marie.
Defending her forceful stance, Le Pen
told RTL: "My words are only the echo
of the social violence that is going to
explode in this country.
"People talk about my aggressiveness,
but the terrible aggressiveness is that of
Mr. Macron's plan ... which is a plan for
social deconstruction and deregulation,"
she said.
A poll on Friday 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-highest for a presidential
election runoff since 1965, underscoring
the disillusionment of many voters at the
choice they now face.
The turnout for the first round of the election
was close to 78 percent.
A poll on Friday showed French voters to
be among the most polarised in the
European Union, with one in five
describing themselves as "extreme" and only
about a third as "centrist".
The survey from the Bertelsmann Foundation
also showed an unusually high level of
dissatisfaction in France with the
direction of the country, underscoring
the challenge that a new president will face.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft
in Paris, Danilo Masoni in Milan and
Abhinav Ramnarayan in London; Editing
by Andrew Roche)
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