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Paris: The most unpredictable French presidential election in decades has taken another bizarre turn after Emmanuel Macron, the leading candidate who is married to his former high school teacher, was forced to deny a gay extramarital affair.
The centrist took the lead in the opinion polls two weeks ago after his conservative rival, Francois Fillon, became embroiled in a scandal centring on alleged misuse of public funds to pay his British wife for a job for which she allegedly did no work.
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Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon embraced technology during the launch of his presidential campaign at a rally in Lyon, with a 3D 'hologram' of him making his speech appearing at the same time at another rally in Paris.
Mr Macron unexpectedly turned up on Monday at a local Paris meeting of activists from his En Marche (On the Move) movement and laughed off the persistent rumours of a homosexual relationship with Mathieu Gallet, a Radio France chief executive.
"If you're told I lead a double life with Mr Gallet it's because my hologram has escaped," he said, in a reference to a rival candidate making an appearance as a hologram at a rally last weekend.
A spokesman for the former investment banker - whose wife Brigitte Trogneux, a former French school teacher, is 24 years his senior - said the comments were "a clear denial of the rumours about his private life".
The couple have regularly featured in France's celebrity and lifestyle magazines since the telegenic Mr Macron, 39, resigned as economy minister from the Socialist government last northern summer to launch his bid for the presidency.
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Mr Macron has previously dismissed claims he is homosexual, but his latest comments may have been caused by a report in the Russian government-controlled news site Sputnik in which a French MP from Mr Fillon's Republicans party said he was backed by a "gay lobby".
Opinion polls put Mr Macron ahead of Mr Fillon in the first round of the election, to be held in April, but only by a few percentage points, and behind Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front.