French presidential candidates trade barbs ahead of Sunday's crucial vote

As May Day marchers prowled and clashed on the streets of Paris.

The two remaining candidates held rallies in the French capital ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.

Centrist presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron used the opportunity to paint Le Pen as an extremist and warned of the dangers to France if she is elected.

“What the National Front candidate proposes is a one way ticket. If she wins we will have to quit the European Union and the euro, devalue our currency, close our borders, abandon our alliances and damage the credibility of France. We will not come out of this unscathed.”

Le Pen also went on the attack:’‘ I tell you Mr Macron is the losing candidate. Since December the French people thought they would be rid of Francois Hollande this president so hated by France, the president who failed France, the president who never governed for the people. We see him leave by the front door and sneak in by the back. Mr Macron adopted the slogan ‘France Together’ it would have been more honest to say ‘bankers together.“

As the campaign enters the final few days the latest polls put Macron ahead by 61 percent to Le Pen’s 39 percent.

Despite their differences Le Pen’s father, former presidential candidate Jean Marie Le Pen, endorsed his daughter at the foot of the Joan of Arc statue in Paris.