内容摘要：, which he said contained "powerful dissuaders to employment".

, which he said contained "powerful dissuaders to employment".

The Popular Front is made up of Socialists, Greens and Communists, but its biggest party is France Unbowed, led by radical firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon.He is widely condemned by his rivals as an extremist, and he is certainly no ally of President Emmanuel Macron.

Despite their agreement to keep out the far right, there is no love lost between the two camps.“You don’t beat the far right with the far left,” the interior minister said, even though a France Unbowed candidate had pulled out to help him win.The Macron centrists are third in the polls, well behind the Popular Front as well as the National Rally.

“In France we’re fed up with Macron, and I’m more in the centre” said Marc in Tourcoing. “The cost of living is bad, and the rich have become richer and the poor are poorer."National Rally has focused its campaign on media appearances by Mr Bardella and Marine Le Pen, and there have been claims of “phantom candidates” barely showing up in some areas.

When one candidate in the city of Orléans, Élodie Babin, qualified for the second round with little attempt at campaigning she later insisted she had been ill for 10 days.

RN is especially popular in rural areas.The chancellor sped up an already planned "drumbeat" of pro-growth measures, culminating in this week's speech. Reeves's counsel of doom and warnings about black holes and pain has been replaced by a promise of an investment boom.

She has vowed a new runway at Heathrow, visas for those with AI and life science skills and said she would ease the non-dom ban to allow a more generous phase out of tax benefits.Alongside this are plans to make it easier to build, delays to new rules on banks and the ousting of the

, which shows she's serious on growth. As Meatloaf might have scripted for her: "I would do anything for growth".But Reeves's plans are not yet a fully fledged growth plan. Her announcements signal that she is willing to take a series of political hits to foster long term growth.