Mr Macron will give an interview to the Aujourd’hui newspaper in which he is expected to continue his strategy of promising steady leadership in a time of crisis, while portraying Ms Le Pen as a dangerous extremist.

Despite entering the campaign late after being distracted by the war in Ukraine, he has no scheduled public events on Thursday.

“I’ve acquired experience of crises, international experience. I’ve also learned from my mistakes,” he told Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published Thursday.

He acknowledged that “results on immigration were insufficient” and that new arrivals had increased at the start of his term in 2017-2019.

“Worries were created at this point. I didn’t succeed in reducing them and they have fed the (political) extremes,” he said in reference to Ms Le Pen and Mr Zemmour, who is promising “zero immigration.”

A recent poll found that a slim majority of French people (51 percent) found Ms Le Pen worrying, while 39 percent considered she had the stature of a president, up from 21 percent in 2017.

Around 65 percent of French people thought Mr Macron had the stature of a president, the survey from the left-leaning Jean-Jaures Foundation showed.

Ms Le Pen laughed at the idea that she could be demonised on her third run for the presidency despite Mr Macron’s intention of attacking her as economically reckless and xenophobic.

“Scare-mongering which entails saying that unless Emmanuel Macron is re-elected, it will be a crisis, the sun will be extinguished, the sea will disappear and we’ll suffer an invasion of frogs, no longer works,” Ms Le Pen told RTL.