PARIS — Eleven candidates for the French presidency faced off in a debate Tuesday that was more lively and more chaotic than previous encounters.

Frontrunners Marine Le Pen, François Fillon and Emmanuel Macron took to the stage alongside wild-card candidates such as Jacques Cheminade, who wants to colonize Mars, and Jean Lassalle, a centrist who has campaigned around France on foot.

The exchange veered from the comical to the hostile. Far-left candidates Philippe Poutou and Nathalie Arthaud showed little restraint when going after Le Pen and Fillon over their judicial troubles, a subject that remained largely untouched in the previous debate, in March, which featured just the five leading candidates.

Of the front-runners, Macron and Fillon fared relatively well and Le Pen avoided buckling despite criticism from nearly all the others. Benoit Hamon, the Socialist pick, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon stuck to their tactic of avoiding a direct showdown over the far-left vote.

Here are five takeaways from the debate.

1. The EU takes center stage, finally

For the first time in the campaign, the candidates tackled France's relationship with the European Union head-on — and sparks flew.

Five of those on stage — veteran leftist Mélenchon, anti-finance candidate Cheminade, anti-EU wildcard François Asselineau, sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and Le Pen — all called for the renegotiation of EU treaties or pulling out of the bloc altogether. Asselineau attacked Le Pen at one point for flip-flopping over the euro, while he has called for immediate withdrawal from the EU.

Far-left candidates Poutou and Arthaud focused more on combating capitalism than Brussels. Only Hamon, Fillon and Macron took clearly pro-European positions, with the latter saying France needed the EU to "protect itself."

2. Le Pen under fire

In the first debate, Fillon was in the hot seat. This time it was Le Pen's turn. Early in the marathon debate, Macron leveled his sharpest attack yet on the National Front party chief, accusing her of fomenting nationalism and setting the stage for "economic war" with her plans for a withdrawal from the EU. "Nationalism is war. I come from those regions that are full of its graveyards," he said referring to the Somme, the site of bloody World War I battles.

Fillon followed up by pointing out that polls show most people in France want to keep the euro, predicting that Le Pen's plans would "collapse as soon as the French vote to keep the European currency." Minor candidates piled in: Poutou, who is polling below 1 percent, accused the National Front chief of hypocrisy over allegations that her party misused European Parliament funds to pay assistants.

Hamon also laid into the National Front chief, accusing her of "playing the victim" while she "scapegoated" minorities and Muslims.

Le Pen shrugged off most of the attacks. She fired most of her barbs at Macron, whom polls predict she will face in the election's final round on May 7. But as the debate dragged on, Le Pen showed signs of irritation. "Is this a debate or an interrogation?" she snapped when moderator Ruth Elkrief pointed out that she was facing more than one judicial investigation.

3. Dupont-Aignan's dash for the limelight

The leader of the Debout La France (Stand Up, France) movement was the debate's unknown quantity. Close to Le Pen on many issues, the Euroskeptic independent has nonetheless refused to rally behind her candidacy, threatening to siphon voters from the National Front. Polls show him winning as much as 5.5 percent of the vote in the election's first round on April 23.

Dupont-Aignan tried to make the most of his time in the limelight. He went after Fillon and Macron for having failed to solve France's problems during their time in government, accusing them of having run up debt and supported treaties he would "never" have signed.

Yet he failed to make a convincing case for himself, using his speaking time to snipe at other candidates, especially Macron for having worked at the Rothschild bank. After the debate Dupont-Aignan may remain an issue for the National Front — but he's unlikely to become a force to be reckoned with in the wider election.

4. No upsets

The frontrunners held their own and held off throwing knockout punches at each other.

Macron put on a better performance than during the first debate. He pounded home a message of optimism in his closing remarks, steering clear of the pragmatism that plagued his first outing.

Fillon was subdued but in control. He growled a few times when accused of wrongdoing by hiring his wife and children as parliamentary assistants, but avoided skirmishes. He retained a statesman's bearing that sets him apart from other contestants.

Mélenchon and Hamon, who are competing to represent the left in the election, stuck by their non-aggression pact. Of the two, Hamon was the more aggressive and Mélenchon, leader of the Untamed France movement, even concluded his remarks by calling for a "more cheerful" future.

5. Wildcard candidates spiced things up

Having 11 candidates on stage had the potential for fireworks, and the participants did not disappoint. Asselineau and Cheminade brought a whiff of outlandishness to the proceedings, with the latter calling European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi a "shady" financier and the former repeatedly invoking Switzerland as a role model for France.

Arthaud and Poutou, both representing minor far-left movements, railed against capitalism and corrupt government officials. Poutou defended his proposal to ban anyone from being fired and "expropriate" banks, while Arthaud declared that she had no intention of uniting the French people because she was on the side of workers against supporters of capitalism.

But by far the most refreshing performance was that of the centrist Lassalle. The gangly wildcard waved his arms, ignored calls to wrap up his slow, folksy interventions, hailed the debate as "magnificent" and thanked the moderators for having invited him. Lassalle won't have to worry about being elected president, but he certainly earned himself a cult following.