Le Pen or Macron?

France yesterday prepared to choose between centrist President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen to rule the country for the next five years after a bitterly contested and polarising election campaign.

Macron is the favourite to win re-election in the run-off ballot today, and there are indications he bolstered his advantage with a combative performance in the one-off election debate against a somewhat defensive Le Pen.

Polls have shown Macron with a lead of some 10 percentage points.  But result is predicted to be closer than in 2017, when the same candidates faced off but Macron carried the day with 66 percent to 34 percent.

But the president and his allies have insisted over the last week that nothing is in the bag, with a strong turnout crucial to avoid a shock in France comparable to the 2016 polls that led to Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump's election in the United States.

A Le Pen victory would send shockwaves across Europe. Left-wing EU leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have pleaded with France to choose Macron over his rival.

The stakes are huge -- Le Pen would become modern France's first far-right leader and first female president. Macron would be the first French president to win re-election in two decades.

If elected, Macron is expected, in a symbolic gesture, to address supporters on the Champ de Mars in central Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Some 48.7 million French are eligible to vote.

Polls in mainland France will open at 0600 GMT and close 12 hours later, immediately followed by projections that usually predict the result with a degree of accuracy.

Macron and Le Pen threw themselves into a final flurry of campaigning Friday, firing off attacks in interviews before last-minute walkabouts and rallies.

Le Pen insisted that opinion polls giving Macron the lead would be proved wrong and took aim at her rival's plan to push back the retirement age to 65 from 62.

Macron for his part said Le Pen was trying to mask an authoritarian "extreme right" platform that stigmatises Muslims with a plan to outlaw headscarves in public.