A French conservative politician was knocked out in a Paris market while handing out leaflets ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 44, a former environment minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, briefly lost consciousness and was taken to hospital, her campaign team said.

The politician, who is known under the acronym 'NKM', was pictured lying on the ground following the attack.

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet was insulted by a man while visiting a market in central Paris and then lost her balance when he tried to throw her campaign leaflets in her face. After falling, she blacked out for several minutes possibly after hitting her head, before being revived by emergency service

She had been confronted by a man in her fifties who jabbed his finger in her face and called her a 'dirty bobo', a derisive term for an urban hipster.

He also tried to throw her campaign leaflets in her face and made reference to Paris' Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, saying: 'It's your fault we have Hidalgo as mayor.'

She lost her balance and after falling, she blacked out for several minutes possibly after hitting her head, before being revived by emergency services.

NKM, a mother-of-two, had been defeated by Hidalgo in her bid to become the first female mayor of Paris in 2014.

The attacker also said she should 'go back to the Essonne', the department in the region of Île-de-France to the south of Paris where she used to be an MP.

Kosciusko-Morizet, widely known by her initials NKM, was insulted by a man while visiting a market in central Paris and then lost her balance when he tried to throw her campaign leaflets in her face

She then fell to the ground and the man in the chinos and shirt (right) disappeared from view

After falling, she blacked out for several minutes possibly after hitting her head, before being revived by emergency services

She is now standing to re-enter parliament in her central Paris constituency and had been campaigning for the Republican party ahead of Sunday's elections, where President Emmanuel Macron's party is expected to win a landslide victory.

She faces a battle to win a seat against Gilles Le Gendre from the Republic on the Move party (En Marche!) of Macron.

Paris mayor Hidalgo called the assault in Maubert square 'cowardly and intolerable'.

France's Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, also spoke out against 'the unacceptable act of violence'.

Her aggressor, a middle-aged man in a shirt and chinos, left the scene immediately and was last seen disappearing into the Metro.

The Paris prosecutors' office said a investigation had been opened into the incident.