French leader Emmanuel Macron has voiced regret for his tardy campaigning as the latest opinion polls show he has only a slight lead over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, just two days before the first round of presidential elections.
Le Pen has surged in the polls in recent weeks and is expected to face Macron in the second round run-off on 24 April.
If that's the case, a recent Ifop poll showed a tight race – with Macron on 52 percent and Le Pen on 48 percent. For the first time his win was within the margin of error.
Macron acknowledged that his involvement in international affairs, notably the international crisis over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, had led to him joining the campaign later than other candidates.
"Who could have understood six weeks ago that all of sudden I would start political rallies, that I would focus on domestic issues when the war started in Ukraine," Macron told RTL radio on Friday.
"So it is a fact that I entered [the campaign] even later than I wished."
Despite his slip in the polls, Macron said he retained a "spirit of conquest rather than of defeat".
Another recent survey put Macron slightly ahead of Le Pen in Sunday's first round, in which 12 candidates are competing for the two places in the run-off – unless one candidate wins an outright majority.
It put Macron on 26 percent and Le Pen on 22 percent, ahead of hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon of France Unbowed (17 percent), far-right Eric Zemmour of Reconquest (17 percent), rightwing Valérie Pécresse of Les Republicans (9 percent) and ecologist Yannick Jadot of the Green party (5 percent).
The other candidates are polling at 3 percent or below, including the Socialist Party's Anne Hidalgo.
Bad for business
Campaigning ends at midnight Friday, allowing for a day of "electoral silence" before polling stations open on Sunday at 8am.
Macron made a final attempt on Friday to challenge Le Pen, telling Le Parisien daily that her social programme would be bad for business.
"Her programme will create massive unemployment because it will drive international investors away and it will not hold up budget-wise," he said.
"Her fundamentals have not changed: it's a racist programme that aims to divide society and is very brutal."
Macron added that Le Pen's camp had a clear strategy to "hide what is brutal in her programme".
Le Pen told broadcaster Franceinfo that she was "shocked" at Macron's accusation of racism, which she rejected, saying her programme aimed at putting the rights of French people first, regardless of their origin.
The leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front founded by her father Jean-Marine Le Pen, has centred her campaign on purchasing power, successfully softening her image and tapping into voters' main concerns by promising to cut taxes.
But Macron insisted she was "lying to people", slamming her campaign pledges as empty promises that she would not be able to finance and that would send investors fleeing, resulting in mass unemployment.
Markets this week started to acknowledge the possibility of Le Pen winning the elections. "For today, that notion should mean limited risk taking," financial analysts with ING said in a note to clients.
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