Five years ago, Emmanuel Macron contested the presidential election with Marine Le Pen, but he now faces a much stronger challenge from the renewed leader of the far right.
The second round of the French presidential elections will be held on April 24, and opinion polls indicate a closeness in the chances of the two parties in the race.
Who are the two candidates and what is their vision for France?
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When Macron became France's youngest president in 2017, he crowned a rapid rise that came less than a year after launching a centrist political movement called the Party of the Republic on the Move to counter traditional parties.
He easily defeated Marine Le Pen in the run-off of the 2017 elections, receiving 66 percent of the vote. Five years later, at the age of 44, Macron continues to dominate the French political scene, but this time polls indicate that his far-right opponent has a real chance of ousting him from the Elysee Palace.
Macron came to power as a little-known figure, a charismatic former economy minister who had never run for elected office before, and offered a more centrist view of France.
As a disciple of Socialist President François Hollande with an investment banking background, Macron has put aside old political loyalties. This, for many, is what distinguished him from the ruling class, although he shares with it the background of France's political elite. The socialists and republicans who ruled France for a very long time are now in dire straits.
His rise to power looked tame, but he had to navigate fickle political waters in order to pass his controversial reforms promised to voters.
Macron has made it easier for companies to fire workers, cut taxes and impose tough security laws to counter terrorism. But he was forced to scrap a proposed fuel tax in 2018 after weeks of unrest fueled by yellow vest protesters.
His other reforms, including a promise to cut the unemployment rate from more than 10 per cent to 7 per cent by 2022, have been hit by the Covid pandemic, although the unemployment rate is currently down to 7.4 per cent.
He is now proposing to achieve full employment within five years, cut taxes by €15 billion a year for families and businesses, and fund his program by gradually raising the retirement age from 62 to 65.
The proposal to raise the retirement age is not popular with voters facing a severe crisis related to the rising cost of living. His opponents have also accused him of relying on expensive advice from the US consulting firm McKinsey. Marie Le Pen accused him of being a wealthy "financial candidate", even though she herself was a real estate owner.
He was forced to rethink a controversial plan to make the government's return to work assistance for the unemployed, called RSA, conditional on a person working 15-20 hours a week. Macron also wants to invest in the armed forces by doubling the number of reserves in France.