France's troubled wartime past is taking centre stage in the presidential race as centrist Emmanuel Macron visits a Nazi massacre site and Marine Le Pen's far-right party suffers a new blow over alleged Holocaust denial.

France’s far-right National Front made gains in municipal elections, sparking calls for left and right-wing parties to stop its advance.

Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party took a drubbing in local elections, seen as a test ahead of next year’s presidential vote, and the far-right National Front left its first footprint in France’s smallest administrative districts.