More than 50 politicians and activists in France have been assaulted in the run-up to Sunday's final round of snap parliamentary elections, the Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin has said.
"This campaign is short and yet we already have 51 candidates, substitutes and activists who have been physically assaulted," Darmanin told BFMTV on Friday.
More than 30 people have been arrested, he said, including militants from far-right and far-left groups.
Four people, including three minors, were detained over attacking government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot and her team on Wednesday while they were putting up campaign posters in Meudon outside Paris, prosecutors said.
The motive for the attack is not clear.
Thevenot, who is of Mauritian origin, was not harmed but her colleague Virgine Lanlo and a supporter were wounded and taken to hospital after the attack by around 20 people.
France 'on edge'
Last month, President Emmanuel Macron took a gamble in calling snap parliamentary elections just weeks before Paris hosts the Olympics, after the far right trounced his centrist alliance in European elections.
Tensions have risen after the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic National Rally (RN) party came out ahead after the first round of voting on 30 June, winning 39 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly outright.
The anti-immigration party is predicted to win Sunday's runoff.
Several assaults have been reported as centrists and a new left-wing alliance make last ditch efforts to ensure the RN does not win the absolute majority it would need to form a government, with its leader Jordan Bardella as prime minister.
Darmanin said the attacks were happening in a climate in which France was "on edge".
He said the attackers were either people who had "spontaneously become angry" or that they were "ultra-left, ultra-right or other political groups".
'No place' for violence and intimidation
RN candidates have also come under attack. Marie Dauchy, an RN candidate in the Savoie region announced she was suspending her campaign after being "violently assaulted" at a market near the town of Grenoble.
Nicolas Conquer, a conservative candidate allied with the RN, said he and a colleague had been pelted with eggs while campaigning in Cherbourg.
Darmanin said 30,000 police would be deployed on Sunday to secure the vote, including 5,000 in Paris and its suburbs.
Meanwhile, the Paris Bar Council has asked the public prosecutor's office to open a case after the far-right website "Réseau Libre" called for the "elimination" of lawyers who had signed an article against the RN.
"Violence and intimidation have no place in our society," Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote in a social media post.
On Friday, more than 100 lawyers published an open letter in defence of the state of law, describing RN as "a danger to society".
"We, lawyers, are forming a law brigade against the RN," the letter read.
(with newswires)
