WHO ARE THE CONTENDERS?
Macron first pieced together his centrist party in 2016 in his initial run for president.
He poached politicians from the old center-left Socialist and center-right Gaullist parties to lead a technocratically minded government that said it would tackle entrenched interest groups, reinvigorate the economy and slash unemployment. It is still a work in progress.
The far-right, nationalist party was formerly known as the National Front. Its leader Marine Le Pen has tried to make the brand less toxic and more electable since taking over in 2011 from her father Jean-Marie, who was notorious for his racist and antisemitic comments.
Marine Le Pen has largely maintained the party’s hostility to immigrants but stopped campaigning for France to leave the European Union.
She’s brought more discipline to the movement, both in its language and attire in an effort to make it look and sound more like a government in waiting.
Opinion polls suggest the National Rally will win the biggest share of the vote in its best showing ever.
This coalition of leftist parties has called for a cut in the official retirement age to 60 from 62, reversing the law pushed through by Macron that will raise it to 64, a higher minimum wage and the return of wealth taxes.
Whether it would actually do all this in office would depend partly on which of its heavyweights became prime minister.
The movement is a coalition ranging from the far-left – personified by radical firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon – to more traditional social-democrats including former President Francois Hollande.
Inheritors of the center-right tradition established by de Gaulle and perpetuated by former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Georges Pompidou, the Republicans are now in turmoil.
When their leader Eric Ciotti defied his party colleagues and called for a tie-up with the National Rally, they fired him, only for Ciotti to insist he was staying on.
The party was trailing well behind its three main rivals in opinion polls, but could still play a decisive role if none can secure a majority in the assembly.
