ALL BETS OFF AS FRENCH POLLS LOOM

All bets off as French polls loom
By Caroline Wyatt BBC Paris correspondent.

The French approach this Sunday's first round of voting for a new president in a mood of grumpiness and disillusionment after 12 years of stasis under Jacques Chirac.

Could Jean-Marie Le Pen pull off an upset again?
Rarely have so many French voters been so undecided this close to polling day.
But rarely have the French faced such a crucial political crossroads.
They are agonising over what 21st-Century France should be like, where it stands on the world stage and how the nation can reverse its economic decline, having fallen from 7th place in terms of GDP per head to a mere 17th over the past 25 years.
The presidential election campaign has reflected that crisis of confidence and the widespread fear of what globalisation means for France.
Yet personalities have dominated the campaign as much as policies, making this one of the most compelling presidential races in decades, as a younger generation of politicians fights it out for the Elysee Palace.
The need to reinvigorate the French economy and create jobs, especially for the young, has been top of the agenda, followed by the question of French identity and "French values". Three of the four main candidates have wrapped themselves in the tricolour, singing the Marseillaise, competing to be the most patriotic defender of those values, albeit with radically different interpretations.
Trouble for Sarkozy
The frontrunner, 52-year-old right-wing former Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, portrays himself as the candidate who would make a real break with the past, despite being in government for the past five years under outgoing President Jacques Chirac, 74.

Click to see leading candidates' poll ratings

Mr Sarkozy has promised to lower France's stubbornly high unemployment rate of 9% by making the French realise "the value of hard work again".
He has not dared pledge to scrap the Socialists' 35-hour working week, but has said it should be a minimum, rather than a maximum, with a campaign slogan that might not seem quite so revolutionary in many other countries: "work more to earn more".
The son of a Hungarian immigrant, Mr Sarkozy remains a controversial figure: loved by big business in France, but viewed with deep suspicion by many in the suburbs, after he promised to hose the racaille (rabble) from the streets ahead of the riots in November 2005.
Alienation
The trouble in the suburbs that year made clear the deep social divides that cleave France in two, and the feeling among many young French of immigrant origin that they are excluded not only from the employment market but French society itself.
Mr Sarkozy's call for a Ministry of National Identity - and the need for immigrants to prove their loyalty to France - may be aimed at stealing votes from far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, but it has also been a turn-off for some centrist voters, while Mr Le Pen has needled him by claiming that the French will not vote for a president "of immigrant stock".
The issue of Mr Sarkozy's temperament has also surfaced in the final days of campaigning. His political opponents have suggested that he is too unpredictable and potentially unstable to govern France, citing a book by former Equality Minister Azouz Begag in which Mr Sarkozy is quoted as threatening to "smash his face in" for a perceived insult.

New-look left
Hot on the heels of Mr Sarkozy is Segolene Royal, 53, the photogenic Socialist candidate and mother-of-four whose personal popularity and high media profile last year helped her win the Socialist nomination against the wishes of the party's "elephants", or elder statesmen. They still see her as an outsider and a stubborn individualist with a conservative streak - even though her partner and father of their children, Francois Hollande, is head of the Socialist Party.

She combines traditional leftist economic policies with a rather more right-wing tinge on social issues and an image as a firm "headmistress" type who believes in the firm smack of discipline.
Her French Army colonel father (whom she sued for maintenance after he divorced her mother) might well have been proud of her suggestion of army boot camps for violent young offenders.
Yet her pedestrian campaign has failed to set France alight. Women voters appear to prefer Mr Sarkozy, while some traditional Socialists say they will vote for Ms Royal only reluctantly.
Those doubts over Ms Royal - and question marks over her competence on the world stage, after a series of gaffes abroad - have allowed UDF centrist Francois Bayrou, 55, to catch up from behind to become the "third man" of the campaign. He has drawn support from both left and right with his promise to unite the squabbling parties in a government of national unity.
His straight-talking, down-to-earth reputation as a man with rural roots who understands countryside issues - as well as being a former teacher and writer in a country which still has deep respect for intellectuals - has given him a broad appeal, though he has yet to convince the French that voting for him in the first round is not a wasted vote.
And just behind Mr Bayrou lurks far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, 78, who - whatever his own result in this first round - has had the satisfaction of seeing his policies taken up by the mainstream.
The issues of security, immigration and the need to preserve "French identity" have all become central to Mr Sarkozy's and Ms Royal's campaigns, thanks also to the rioting of 2005 which has intensified French fears about crime and insecurity.
The other issue playing into the campaign is the public's deep disillusionment with politicians and their promises and the Parisian elite. That disillusionment is driving up support for both Mr Bayrou and Mr Le Pen, who are seen as "outsiders" despite their long sojourn on the political stage.
Hard choice
So many political pledges have indeed been broken over the past decades - stymied by the French themselves, and the trade unions, which summon up crowds onto the streets to protest against the slightest hint of reform to France's generous welfare state. It is a system the nation can no longer afford, as its ageing population sends on the bill to the next, increasingly resentful generation, aware that France must change, yet unwilling to let it do so.
Across the country, many sigh that France is simply ungovernable. And even at this stage, few pundits or politicians are willing to bet on Sunday's results. The 2002 elections and the 2005 referendum on the EU constitution showed that opinion polls can be unreliable - if voters do not tell pollsters the truth.
In the past that has led to Mr Le Pen's support being consistently underestimated, though perhaps his increasing "acceptability" after going through to the second round in 2002 has brought more Le Pen supporters out into the open.
Yet it has also made many French aware of the dangers of splitting the vote by choosing minority far-left parties, or of failing to vote altogether, as Socialist supporters did much to their shame in 2002.
As the French enter the curtained-off polling booths this Sunday, some may not have made up their minds.
Even today, two days ahead of polling day, one-third of voters are still hesitating over whether they are ready for radical but painful reform under Nicolas Sarkozy, a return to the new/old left under Segolene Royal, a gamble on the new centre with Francois Bayrou or an expression of fear and disdain for the political establishment with Jean-Marie Le Pen.

But more than ever have registered to vote, and all those factors make this one of the most unpredictable races in French election history.

BBC NEWS REPORT.