French candidates make final push

PARIS -- France's presidential candidates made a final push for support yesterday, the last day of campaigning before tomorrow's first-round ballot, with rightist Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal favorites to win.

But with millions of voters undecided, neither front-runner was taking anything for granted after months of fierce political battles that have focused as much on personality as policy.

"There are 24 hours left in which the French are going to reflect. They know they are going to write a very important page in the history of France," said Royal, who is seeking to become France's first woman president.

A campaign blackout and poll embargo came into force at midnight, and the final flurry of opinion surveys provided mixed messages to all four leading candidates.

The BVA and Ipsos polls released yesterday found that Royal had continued to narrow the gap slightly on Sarkozy but forecast that the former interior minister would go on to win a May 6 run off against the Socialist by 52 percent and 53.5 percent respectively.

However, a CSA poll for the Le Parisien daily made the race a dead heat and put far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in third place ahead of centrist Francois Bayrou.

A dozen candidates are seeking election and if, as expected, no one wins an absolute majority tomorrow the top two will contest a second-round ballot May 6.

Sarkozy has led the polls for months, but Royal has steadily narrowed the gap and analysts say both Bayrou and far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen could yet cause an upset.

In 2002, Le Pen stunned France by knocking out the Socialist candidate to win a place in the runoff against sitting President Jacques Chirac, who secured a comprehensive victory.

Chirac, the last survivor of a political class formed by World War II General Charles de Gaulle, is retiring after 12 years in power, while the candidates leading in the polls are in their early 50s, promising a generational change at the top of France.

The election campaign has run against a background of fears over jobs, immigration and security, with memories of riots in France's deprived suburbs in 2005 still fresh in the memory.

There was a reminder of the potential for further trouble when camera crews filming at one of the flashpoints of the 2005 violence near Paris were assaulted and robbed.

The candidates' final appearances had heavy symbolic overtones, with Sarkozy riding a horse through a bull farm in the south, Royal at a trendy street market in Paris, and Bayrou at a World War I memorial in Verdun.

The battle has increasingly focused on personalities over the past month -- especially that of Sarkozy, who has been vilified as a dangerous, divisive force.

A law-and-order hard-liner and, by French standards, a free-marketeer, he has tried to build a more soothing image, with tributes to figures like civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II. But he has been hurt by the attacks.

"I am covered in scars," he told Le Parisien daily.

Royal, an economic left-winger with a strong line in traditional social values, has presented herself as a healing force for a divided France. But she has had a rocky campaign, facing constant questions over her competence following a series of foreign policy gaffes.