policies of the current administration, she stated that "One can hear Juppé or Sarkozy say that (then-President) Hollande does not have a spine, but he has surpassed them all by several heads in terms of attacks on workers". Because of the Workers' Struggle party's dedicated base, Arthaud was not expected to encounter trouble collecting the necessary 500 signatures to qualify for ballot placement; she ultimately became one of the first five candidates to submit the required signatures. She campaigned on her support of increasing the minimum wage to €1,800 per month (an increase of €647), banning layoffs and evictions from rental properties, implementing a large-scale hiring program for public services, lowering the retirement age to 60, increasing pensions and indexing them to the cost of living, and nationalizing French banks and the financial sector. Arthaud continued to teach during her campaign, making her the only candidate to still hold a job, in addition to (along with National Front nominee Marine Le Pen) being one of only two female candidates for the presidency; she also described herself as the sole communist candidate in the race. She and Philippe Poutou (the nominee of the New Anticapitalist Party) both positioned themselves as Trotskyist candidates. Arthaud was not invited to appear in the TF1 debate between the top five highest-polling candidates; however, she did appear in a debate against Solidarity and Progress nominee Jacques Cheminade broadcast virtually on the same day. The month before the first-round election, Arthaud spoke at a rally of 3,500 in Saint-Denis. On April 4, Arthaud was one of eleven candidates to appear at the final televised presidential debate, hosted by BFM TV and CNews. During the debate, Arthaud criticized her opponents for their views on immigration; in response to a question about how she would defend France from terror attacks, Arthaud responded that "I can say what I won't do is seize on every attack, every tragedy, to conflate terrorists with migrants, immigrants and Muslims [...] It's what you do all the time, Marine Le Pen and François Fillon". She also attacked employers who she said "crus(h) the working class condition with impunity". Following her debate performance, business executive Sophie de Menthon (fr) wrote an open letter to the national education association asking that Arthaud be removed from her teaching position, arguing that she embodies "social hatred" and expressing dismay at "the violence of" Arthaud's language at the debate.