France is preparing for a week of rallies and protests ahead of next Sunday's highly-charged runoff presidential election. 

Tens of thousands of high school and university students are expected to march Monday in Paris and other major French cities in opposition to far-right presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. 

Tensions are likely to rise Wednesday, when French labor unions and Mr. Le Pen's National Front plan rival May first demonstrations to celebrate Labor Day and remember the medieval French heroine Joan of Arc. 

Hundreds of thousands of people have protested against Mr. Le Pen in the past week. 

The 73-year-old presidential candidate, who ran on a law-and-order and anti-immigrant platform, scored a major upset last week, by qualifying for the runoff ahead of incumbent Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. He faces conservative President Jacques Chirac. 

Mr. Le Pen says that if he was president he would expel all illegal aliens from France. His platform also calls for taking France out of the European Union. 

Most French political parties and labor unions have endorsed President Chirac in the runoff vote. The country's leading business groups also are expected to back the incumbent. Opinion polls say the president will win the runoff with anywhere between 77 and 81 percent of the vote. 

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