Updated

A messy-haired Ford car factory worker in a baggy sweater stole the limelight during France's dheated presidential election debate.

The man, Philippe Poutou, was not a member of the audience. He's a candidate from the far-left New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), on stage with 10 other candidates less than three weeks ahead of the first poll.

Poutou created sparks with his fighting rhetoric for the working classes and jabs at front-runners embroiled in corruption scandals.

He has virtually no chance of winning the presidency in the two-round election April 23 and May 7. But he is getting his voice heard and basking in the unusual limelight Wednesday after the Tuesday night debate.

Social media went wild with Poutou's stinging attacks, framing him as a regular man speaking truth to power.