The official campaign in France's presidential election opened yesterday, two weeks ahead of the first round of voting, with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal the frontrunners in one of the most exciting and important ballots in recent French history.
The vote will mark the transition to a new generation of leaders and possibly define the country's response to the key issues of globalization and national identity.
Royal, a Socialist who portrays herself as a nurturing figure, and Sarkozy, a tough-on-crime rightwinger who is striving to prove he has a softer side, continue to lead the race by several points.
But opinion polls also show that the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou and the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen are still very much in the running. In theory any two of the four could make it into the deciding round of voting on May 6.
Yesterday all 12 contenders entered the final straight, with official rules coming into effect for campaign broadcasts and postering at polling booths. A hectic nationwide series of public rallies and stump meetings then kicks in up to the first vote on April 22.
France is choosing a successor to President Jacques Chirac, 74, the veteran leader who has been in office since 1995. French voters will also be asked to choose members of parliament in legislative elections set for June.
Last week the tone of the campaign soured as Sarkozy and Royal traded insults, each accusing the other of creating the conditions that triggered a recent riot at a Paris railway station. Sarkozy accused Royal of "siding with fraudsters" and Royal said Sarkozy was a liar.
Analysts said that behind the heated exchanges lay a shared interest on the part of the two candidates to turn the campaign into a classic left-right confrontation and squeeze out their competitors.
Sarkozy on Saturday faced criticism from church and political figures for telling a magazine he was "inclined to think that people are born pedophiles."
He had attracted more bad press on Friday when a former minister recounted in a new book that Sarkozy once threatened to "smash" his face in.
An array of polls last week put Sarkozy at between 26 percent and 31 percent of the first round vote, with Royal at 23 percent to 27 percent and Bayrou between 18 percent and 21 percent. Le Pen was between 12 percent and 16 percent.
But there are still some 18 million out of a total of 44 million voters who have not yet made up their minds who they will vote for, according to an opinion poll in Sunday's Le Parisien newspaper.
With this large number of undecided voters, pollsters said it would be premature to assume that Royal and Sarkozy will necessarily qualify.
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