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French President Emmanuel Macron talks to journalists during a visit in Saint-Denis on Apr 21, 2022, as he campaigns for his re-election in the 2022 French presidential election. (File photo: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes) - 

French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen made final appeals on Friday (Apr 22) to undecided voters weighing fears of what a Le Pen presidency could bring against their anger at Macron's record.

According to the latest surveys for Sunday's run-off, fear may win the day over loathing: Macron the centrist, pro-European incumbent leads his anti-immigration, eurosceptic challenger by 10 to 14 points, well outside margins of error.

But the fact that nearly three in 10 voters say that they will not vote or have not made up their minds means that a surprise Le Pen win similar to events such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as United States president cannot entirely be ruled out.

Wrapping up his campaign in the postcard-pretty medieval village of Figeac in southern France, Macron told voters that Sunday was no less than a plebiscite on the country's future.

"Apr 24 will be a referendum for or against Europe - we want Europe," he said. "Apr 24 will be a referendum for or against a secular, united, indivisible France ... we are for."

Surveys by France's leading pollsters published on Thursday and Friday showed Macron's score was either stable or slightly rising to reach between 55.5 per cent and 57.5 per cent.

But they also put turnout at between 72 per cent and 74 per cent, which would be the lowest for a presidential run-off since 1969.

"There is a risk that all of a sudden a section of the electorate wakes up which we haven't been able to measure," Jean-Daniel Levy of Harris Interactive polling told Reuters.

"But the risk seems limited because this is a two-round system," he said, contrasting that to the shocks of Brexit and Trump's victory produced by single-round votes.

In the central city of Auxerre - which over the years has been an accurate bellwether of presidential outcomes - some voters such as Marc Venner, a retired telecoms worker, were rallying to Macron, albeit without enthusiasm.

"Our democratic and institutional system is on its last legs. No candidate can tackle the real problems," Venner said. "We are a de-industrialised country, a country in decline."

Ghislaine Madalie, a hairdresser with family roots in Morocco, said that she would switch to Macron on Sunday after voting for far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round. But she said that some of her clients would vote for Le Pen as an anti-Macron protest.

"I find that disastrous because she is racist," said Madalie, 36. "I am anxious, for me and for my children. I don’t understand this harassment (of Muslims), I don’t understand what she has against veiled women."

"BOTTOM OF THE PILE"

Le Pen, whose policies include a ban on Muslim headscarves in public, giving French nationals priority on jobs and benefits, and limiting Europe's rules on cross-border travel, says Macron embodies an elitism that has failed ordinary people.

That resonates for many on the streets of the former industrial north of France, a region which includes many Le Pen strongholds and where she has chosen to conclude her campaign.

"The working class like us is always at the bottom of the pile," long-standing Le Pen voter Marcel Bail, 65, told Reuters at a motorway service station in the town of Roye, where Le Pen had lunch on Thursday with truck drivers.

It was the same message on Friday among supporters who turned out to see her in the coastal town of Etaples.

"I have €1,300 (US$1,410) a month - after rent, heating and petrol, that's €400," said gardener Pascal Blondel, 52. "Since Macron got in, we don't eat lunch ... Everything costs more."

Despite one of the world's most generous welfare systems, massive support for French households during the COVID-19 pandemic and fuel bill caps to offset rising energy prices, the cost of living emerged as the top campaign issue of the election.

Even if data shows that all but the poorest 5 per cent of households are better off than five years ago, analysts say the fact that purchasing power has stagnated over a decade may have left an entrenched feeling that people cannot get ahead.

This has combined with Macron's sometimes high-handed leadership style and a perception among many left-leaning voters that he quickly shifted to economically liberal policies soon after being elected, alienating a whole section of the public.

"He does not like the French," Le Pen told Europe 1 radio on Friday, accusing him of disdain towards her and voters in Wednesday's TV debate and saying he lacked the straightforward common sense she had as a mother of three//CNA

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz makes a statement after talks with European leaders and United States President Joe Biden in Berlin on Apr 19, 2022. (File photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner) - 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must avoid a direct military confrontation with Russia that could lead to a third World War, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview with Der Spiegel when asked about Germany's failure to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine.

Scholz is facing growing criticism at home and abroad for his government's apparent reluctance to deliver heavy battlefield weapons, such as tanks and howitzers, to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks, even as other Western allies step up shipments.

Asked in an extensive interview published on Friday (Apr 22) why he thought delivering tanks could lead to nuclear war, he said that there was no rule book that stated when Germany could be considered a party to the war in Ukraine.

"That's why it is all the more important that we consider each step very carefully and coordinate closely with one another," he was quoted as saying. "To avoid an escalation towards NATO is a top priority for me.

"That's why I don't focus on polls or let myself be irritated by shrill calls. The consequences of an error would be dramatic."

This was a departure from his previous statements on the topic, focusing on the fact that the stocks of Germany's own military were too depleted to send any heavy battlefield weapons while those the German industry has said it could supply could not easily be put into use.

Asked why he would not explain that his government's reluctance was due to the threat of nuclear war, he said such "simplifications" were not helpful.

However, Scholz could soon be forced to take a clear position on whether heavy weapons can be sent directly from Germany to Ukraine. The Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported that defence contractor Rheinmetall had applied for a licence to sell 100 Marder armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine.

According to the contractor, the Marders could be delivered quickly, but all military exports have to be approved by a committee on which the chancellor sits.

Germany has in the past allowed other countries, including the Netherlands, to send heavy weapons it made to Ukraine.

Separately, Scholz defended his decision not to immediately end German imports of Russian gas in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

"I absolutely do not see how a gas embargo would end the war. If (Russian President Vladimir) Putin were open to economic arguments, he would never have begun this crazy war," Scholz said.

"Secondly, you act as if this was about money. But it's about avoiding a dramatic economic crisis and the loss of millions of jobs and factories that would never again open their doors."

Scholz said that this would have considerable consequences not just for Germany but also for Europe and the future financing of the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Russia calls its invasion a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for a war that has killed thousands and uprooted a quarter of Ukraine's population//CNA

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media at the UN Headquarters in New York on Mar 14, 2022, regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (File photo: Reuters/Andrew Kelly) - 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow next Tuesday (Apr 26), and will meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin following its February invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson for the UN chief said.

Guterres will also have a working meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Guterres' associate spokesperson Eri Kaneko told a press briefing in New York on Friday.

"He hopes to talk about what can be done to bring peace to Ukraine urgently," Kaneko said.

The secretary-general's office is also working with Ukraine's government on scheduling and preparations for a visit to Russia's southern neighbour, the spokesperson said.

Guterres on Tuesday asked Putin to receive him in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to receive him in Kyiv, in separate letters handed to their countries' permanent missions to the United Nations.

Guterres on Tuesday also called for a four-day Orthodox Easter humanitarian pause in fighting in Ukraine beginning on Thursday to allow for the safe passage of civilians from areas of conflict and the delivery of humanitarian aid to hard-hit areas.

"The secretary-general is not so much disappointed that his own personal call was not heeded, but more that there has been no truce, that civilians cannot leave besieged areas and that the aid that the UN and our partners are ready to deliver to these besieged areas cannot go in," Kaneko said on Friday.

Guterres will further those discussions during his visit to Moscow, the spokesperson added.

Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European country since 1945, has killed or wounded thousands. More than 12 million people need humanitarian assistance in the country today, Guterres has said.

Since starting what it calls a special operation to demilitarise Ukraine, Russia has bombed cities to rubble and hundreds of civilian bodies have been found in towns after its forces withdrew. It denies targeting civilians and says, without evidence, that signs of atrocities were staged.

Western countries and Ukraine accuse Putin of unprovoked aggression//CNA

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya attends an event in support of Ukraine in London on Mar 9, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (File photo: Reuters/Hannah McKay) - 

Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on Friday (Apr 22) for harsher sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko who she says must share full responsibility for Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb 24 from both Russian and Belarusian territory, in what it called a "special military operation" designed to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.

"Lukashenko became an accomplice of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin in this war," Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters in The Hague where she met with Dutch politicians and received an award for her work this week.

"He has to share the whole responsibility," she said.

Lukashenko has said that his country is unfairly labelled an accomplice in the fight. He has said that Belarusian forces are not taking part and will not take part in the conflict.

The European Union, the United States and others have included Belarus in the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia.

Tsikhanouskaya said that the measures should go further.

"The sanctions should be the same in strength (as those against Russia), but different structure because we don't have so many oligarchs. All the economic power is in the hands of the state sector," she said.

Tsikhanouskaya, who fled her home country in 2020 after a presidential election her supporters say was rigged, warned democratic countries not to be fooled by the president's attempts to paint himself as a bystander in the conflict.

"The fact that Belarusian troops did not enter Ukraine is not the merit of Lukashenko, it is the merit of soldiers themselves who don't understand why we should fight against our brothers and sisters," she said//CNA