Pressure builds ahead of French polls as Macron goes on attack

Paris

FRANCE'S presidential candidates hurled insults at one another as tightening polls and the absence of a clear front-runner began to weigh on the campaign.

With the pressure building less than two weeks before the first round, independent Emmanuel Macron became the latest candidate to go on the attack.

During a press conference on Monday, he mocked Republican nominee Francois Fillon's "problem with the truth", labelled Marine Le Pen's comments on French history as revealing her party's "true face" and pilloried Communist-backed insurgent Jean-Luc Melenchon for his anti-war stance.

Having sustained verbal assaults from all sides as the nominal front- runner, Mr Macron is increasingly hitting back as France's 2017 presidential race en…