All the federal leaders have their work cut out for them at Friday’s French-language debate. Earlier in the campaign, many felt the election would be decided in Ontario. But now, the battleground appears to be in Quebec.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair will have to stop the slide in support likely caused by his party’s stance on allowing women wearing a niqab during citizenship ceremonies, a stance that has proven unpopular in this province.

“Now they're reaching numbers where if they keep going down they could lose a significant number of seats in Quebec,” said Sebastien Dallaire, vice-president of public affairs at Leger.

But the NDP also seems to have an identity issue with voters. The party has moved more to the centre politically and the Liberals are more on the left. Also, Quebecers haven't warmed to Mulcair like they did to his predecessor Jack Layton.

“Mulcair tonight is really fighting for his political survival because he had almost his hand on the door of 24 Sussex and now he's got into third place across the country, said political analyst Jean Lapierre.

“I were him I'd just kick my advisors out of the room. He's got to be natural, be authentic Tom, otherwise it shows on TV.”

Mulcair has been positioning the NDP as the only alternative to voters who want change, an appeal to those planning to vote strategically. But now the NDP isn't the only game in town.

“Now the strategic alternative is the Liberals, so they might surf on the strategic spin that the NDP just started,” said Jean-Francois Daoust, a political science researcher at the University of Montreal.

Support for the Conservatives has gone up the most in Quebec, but that support is specific to the Quebec City region.

The Bloc did get a boost and the Liberals moved up a bit, but as usual it's the anglophone voters who are in Trudeau's corner.

“If [Trudeau] wants to have more seats he's got to connect with francophones and he's got to work on his language but if he performs as well as he did in the last couple of debates, my gosh he could make it,” Lapierre said.

The French debate, which is also the final debate, goes Friday night at 8 p.m. on TVA and LCN.