WITH their own and France’s fates in the balance, candidates were making their last campaign pushes today for the first round of voting in its pivotal legislative election.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s centre-right grouping risks a potentially fatal beating at the hands of the surging far-right National Rally (RN) party.

With polls indicating the anti-immigration RN could greatly increase its representation in the National Assembly, the election could radically alter the trajectory of the European Union’s largest country and hamstring Mr Macron for the remainder of his presidential term.