France elections: Here's why major parties want to block Marine Le Pen

Macron is the favourite to win presidency by a long margin, with around 60% of vote to Le Pen's 40%

It’s down to two. In the second round of the French presidential elections on May 7, the far-right Marine Le Pen faces a run-off with the centrist independent Emmanuel Macron. Many comparisons have been made to 2002, when Marine’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen made it through to the second round against Jacques Chirac. But the social and political context in 2017 is very different to 2002.

Although Macron is the favourite to win the presidency by a long margin, with around 60% of the vote to Le Pen’s 40%, and both candidates of the centre-left