That's where the similarities end, because the outlook and circumstances of these men diverge considerably, underlining some of the deepest social and economic differences in France. The differences speak principally to the complexity of the French economy, about which attitudes do not always match the facts.

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Alain Leonard, 55, and Modibo Bathily, 58, sat drinking and smoking on a park bench on the outskirts of Paris. Both men are unemployed, Leonard after a back accident left him unable to work his job as a handyman and Bathily, who was born in Mali, after three years of service in the French military. They are angry about the economy, which they say has failed them.

Tugdual Guillouche and Baptiste Bouniol, both 20, sat smoking on a park bench in the city's bustling center. Both men are business school students. Guillouche dreams of working in the wine industry, with stints in China or maybe South America, and Bouniol dreams of working in construction, his eyes set on major new building projects. They are fundamentally optimistic about their futures, though they express some criticisms of the way the economy is run, citing mainly the constraints of German-led European economy policy.

The economy is among the most important issues to French voters, according to polling, shaping how they decide between two starkly different visions of the country. The one offered by Macron is open to Europe and the world, and it promises targeted investment and welfare expansion, paired with spending cuts and more flexibility in labor codes. The one offered by Le Pen, who has moved her far-right National Front party toward a strident economic nationalism, is shut off from Europe and involves maintaining labor regulations and increasing welfare spending.

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Le Pen, in particular, relies on a message of economic doom and gloom. She says Europe has choked French prosperity. Macron, a former Socialist finance minister, says that the economy needs fine-tuning but that the basics are sound.

Optimism is a tough sell, even for those repelled by Le Pen. As a result, there is dissatisfaction with both candidates — and a feeling that nothing will change with this election.

Pew data suggests that French economic attitudes, which used to mirror attitudes in Germany, a founding European Union partner, have gravitated toward Southern Europe and now resemble attitudes in Spain, Italy and Greece. Last year, just 12 percent of French people surveyed said the economy was doing well, compared with 75 percent of Germans.

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“The French, Italians, Spanish and Greeks were at the lowest in our 10-country survey in Europe, and they were all bunched together at the bottom,” said Bruce Stokes, Pew’s director of global economic attitudes.

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This has fueled anti-German sentiment in France, said Tanja Börzel, director of the Center for European Integration at the Free University in Berlin.

Guillouche said he couldn’t support Macron because he feared the independent centrist would be a puppet of Angela Merkel, Germany's powerful chancellor. Guillouche supported center-right François Fillon in the first round of voting, citing his plans to spur French investment and keep the rich from taking their money elsewhere. He planned to vote blank on Sunday.

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Bathily, the military veteran, planned to stay home. He said the country needs to be reformed, forcing certain people to sacrifice so that everyone can live comfortably. In his view, the economic plan of neither candidate goes deep enough.

Unemployment hovers at about 10 percent, and experts say it is among the most troubling economic indicators, along with debt. The unemployment figure is higher still for young people.

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The difficulty, in part, stems from an area where the French economy is quite successful — productivity, said Robert Hancké, an economist at the London School of Economics. When productivity is higher than the growth rate, which is low across much of Europe, “it forces people out of the labor market,” he said. About 15 percent of the population, including many without academic credentials, is shut out, he said.

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Mark Vail, a scholar of Western European political economy at Tulane University, said unemployment in France carries meaning that is distinct from unemployment in, say, the United States, owing to broader social benefits in France and a health-care system that better accounts for the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, France maintains a fairly robust export sector and an internationally competitive industrial base, Vail said, in areas such as aerospace and the chemical industry.

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“The French economy has consistently bucked the trend,” Hancké said. “Despite the fact that the role of the state is much higher than in most other economies, the French economy does reasonably well. Because it runs against textbooks, most observers find that very difficult to reconcile. For the last 25 or 30 years, people have been saying the French economy is a basket case that can’t be saved, while the French economy is permanently saying that’s wrong.”

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A flailing French economy, Vail said, is largely a narrative of the Anglo-American right, which “tries to use France quite awkwardly to justify a much more neoliberal, dog-eat-dog capitalism.”

But the narrative has eaten into France’s perception of itself.

“I’ve been looking at the French economy for 30 years, and every few years, I’ve had to go to them and explain to them how well they’re doing,” Hancké said.

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Bouniol doesn't need convincing. Despite some criticisms, he will vote for Macron because he has no major objections to the present economic arrangements and thinks the political outsider will do little harm.

Meanwhile, Hancké’s explanation would mean little to Leonard, who wants to go back to work at 55, despite his bad back. He can’t find anyone who will hire him. But he will vote for Macron, he said, because “it can't get worse than Hollande,” referring to the current Socialist president, François Hollande.