Prosecutors have begun an inquiry after French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron complained about 'fake news' circulated by his far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

During yesterday's ferocious TV debate, Le Pen said: 'I hope that we will not find out that you have an offshore account in the Bahamas.'

Macron refuted the suggestion as 'defamation' and an aide said his campaign will 'not hesitate' to sue anyone who repeats the claim.

Judicial sources said prosecutors had opened a probe following Macron's complaint, which came three days before Sunday's presidential run-off.

The news came at the end of a frenzied day of campaigning, which saw eggs hurled at Le Pen by protesters and Barack Obama come out for Macron in an online video.

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Protesters hurled eggs at French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen today, striking a bodyguard

The man wiped yolk off his face as Le Pen (right) ducked from the projectiles and shielded her face

According to a source close to the case, the complaint targets 'information that circulated Wednesday night on the internet' alleging tax evasion in the Bahamas.

Speaking on French radio today, the centrist, pro-EU candidate characterised the insinuations as 'fake news and lies' from 'sites, some of which were linked to Russian interests'.

Obama came out in favour of Macron in an unprecedented move in an online video released earlier today.

He said: 'I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now I don't have to run for office again, but the French election is very important to the future of France, and the values that we care so much about.

French money talks French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron says he is 'against everything Marine Le Pen said' on European issues and the euro currency during a televised debate. Macron insisted the goal of his far-right rival in the presidential race to exit the European Union and the euro currency is 'dangerous' and would lead to a potential devaluation of the French currency by 20 to 30 percent. Le Pen has proposed returning to the French franc following negotiations with other EU members and a voter referendum on the issue. Macron says France is stronger as part of the EU. Advertisement

'Because the success of France matters to the entire world, I have admired the campaign that Emmanuel Macron has run.

'He had stood up for liberal values. He put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world, and he is committed to a better future for the French people.

'He appeals to people's hopes, and not their fears.'

At the end of his new video, which was Tweeted by Macron, Obama told him: 'I want all my friends in France to know how much I am rooting for your success.

'Because of how important this election is I also want you to know that I am supporting Emmanuel Macron to lead you forward. En Marche! Vive la France!'

Le Pen is shielded from protesters by bodyguards as she entered the shipping company headquarters today

Around 50 people were on hand as Le Pen arrived at a shipping company in the western town of Dol-de-Bretagne, hurling eggs and shouting 'out with fascists'

None of the eggs hit their target as bodyguards hustled Le Pen, 48, into the building

Le Pen sat in a truck while being photographed by the press during the campaign stop

En Marche! also released an English language video in which Tad Devine, a strategy campaigner to failed Democrat electoral candidate Bernie Saunders, said: 'It's very important to the world that Emmanuel Macron is elected President of France.'

Le Pen senior slams his daughter's showing in TV debates Marine Le Pen's estranged father Jean-Marie said his daughter had failed to 'rise to the occasion' in a bruising debate with election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron. 'I always want my champion to win hands down,' Le Pen senior said of Wednesday's debate viewed by more than 16 million people. But the 88-year-old deemed the duel a 'draw', saying his daughter - who kicked him out of her National Front (FN) party in 2015 - 'perhaps did not rise to the occasion.' Speaking on French radio, he blamed the candidate's advisers for underestimating a 'very solid' Macron, wrongly 'hoping for a collapse or a psychological meltdown.' Marine Le Pen has sought to purge the FN of associations with her xenophobic, anti-Semitic father, who co-founded the party in 1972. He has repeatedly called the Nazi gas chambers a 'detail' of history. Advertisement

Last night Le Pen and Macron clashed over terrorism, the economy and Europe during a bad-tempered debate.

Le Pen insisted 'France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs Merkel' while centrist Macron hit back by labelling the National Front candidate 'a parasite' living off people's anger.

The duel ahead of Sunday's election was billed as a confrontation between Macron's call for openness and pro-market reforms and Le Pen's France-first nationalism.

The tone was set in the opening minutes, with Le Pen branding the former economy minister and investment banker 'the candidate of the elite' and the 'darling of the system'.

Macron replied that Le Pen, the 48-year-old scion of the National Front (FN) party, was 'the heir of a system which has prospered from the fury of the French people for decades', adding: 'You play with fear.'

She also accused Macron of an 'indulgent attitude' towards Islamic fundamentalism and constantly sought to remind viewers of his role as a minister in unpopular President Francois Hollande's Socialist government.

But Macron was in combative form throughout, repeatedly portraying Le Pen's proposals as simplistic, defeatist or dangerous and targeting her proposals to withdraw France from the euro in particular.

The scenes followed an angry TV debate last night. Pictured: Marine Le Pen (left) and Emmanuel Macron (right)

The two candidates were put on timers, with both clocks reading 00:00 before the start of the debate as Emmanuel Macron takes a drink of water

The euro policy 'was the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen's programme,' he said midway through the 140-minute debate.

Le Pen called the euro, shared by 19 countries in the European Union and blamed by some in France for a rise in prices, as 'the currency of bankers, it's not the people's currency.'

Trailing in the polls, the debate was probably her last chance to change the dynamics of the race ahead of the final weekend of a long and unpredictable campaign.

A poll by the Elabe group for the BFM channel immediately afterwards showed that 63 percent of people interviewed found Macron the most convincing versus 34 percent for Le Pen. This broadly mirrors forecasts for Sunday's vote.

Macron would win around 59 percent to 41 percent if the vote were held now, surveys suggest, but previous debates during the rollercoaster French campaign have shifted public opinion.

French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron is pictured on a television screen backstage

The candiadtes sat opposite each other on the same table as two French journalists at the television studios of French public national television channel France 2, and French private channel TF1 in La Plaine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris

Obama came out in favour of Macron in an unprecedented move in an online video released earlier today

The duel marked a new step into the mainstream for Le Pen, whose party was once considered by France's political establishment to be an extremist fringe that should be boycotted.

When her father Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the final round of the presidential election in 2002, his conservative opponent Jacques Chirac refused to debate with him out of fear of 'normalising hate and intolerance'.

France-Russia relations Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen says that France has 'no reason for a Cold War with Russia'. She spoke during a debate Wednesday with centrist rival Emmanuel Macron. The populist leader of the National Front party says she is the politician best-placed to hold talks with Russia, the United States under President Donald Trump or Britain as it prepares to depart the European Union. Le Pen says she's not concerned about the state of US-Russia ties, but 'I hope they will be the best in the world.' Advertisement

In the first round of the election on April 23, Marine Le Pen finished second scoring 21.3 percent after softening the FN's image over the past six years - but without fully removing doubt about the party's core beliefs.

She sees her rise as the consequence of growing right-wing nationalism and a backlash against globalisation represented by the election of Donald Trump in the United States and Britain's decision to leave the European Union.

'I am the candidate of the people of France such as we love it, of the nation that protects jobs, security, our borders,' she said in her opening comments.

The debate was unlikely to have swayed any committed supporters of either candidate, but it could influence the roughly 18 percent of undecided voters and others who were planning to abstain.

Like much of the French press, daily Le Monde deplored a 'brutal debate' that was 'violent from start to finish'.

Many supporters of Communist-backed candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came fourth in the first round, have said they will not vote on Sunday, comparing the final round as a choice between 'the plague and cholera'.

President Hollande and members of the government have led warnings about the risk of a Le Pen presidency.

'We are in a zone of absolute danger,' warned Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem before the debate. 'Do not play Russian roulette with our democracy.'

Hollande told reporters that 'we shouldn't think the result is a foregone conclusion' and urged Macron, his former adviser and economy minister, to make clear his different vision of France in Europe and the world.

Macron quit the government last August to concentrate on his new centrist political movement En Marche, which has drawn 250,000 members in 12 months.