Clock Ticks on Campaigns

Nicolas Sarkozy of the center-right UMP party and Socialist rival Segolene Royal are still leading the polls, with centrist Francois Bayrou in third place. Recent surveys, however, suggest more voters are undecided this time around than in the previous presidential election.

Hundreds of thousands of French -- especially young people from ethnic minorities living in deprived areas -- have registered to take part in the elections for the first time, but it seems candidates have failed to convince voters they are the best man, or woman, for the job.

A survey by pollsters CSA published in Sunday's Le Parisien found around 18 million voters -- or some 42 percent of the electorate -- are still unsure of which candidate to plump for.

An IFOP survey published at the end of last week came to a similar conclusion. The number is 10 percentage points more than in 2002, according to Frederic Dabi from IFOP. Dabi saw the results as reflecting "insecurity over what's on offer." Many voters obviously doubted whether the main candidates were "capable of filling the office," Dabi said.

The first round of polling begins on April 22. If no candidate wins 50 percent or more of the vote, the election goes to a second round between the two leading candidates on May 6.

Sarkozy lead widens

Right-wing Sarkozy, who has recently hardened his stance on crime and immigration, has consistently led opinion polls and has picked up a few points over Royal in recent days.

An IFOP survey for the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday gave Sarkozy 29.5 points in the first round vote, a three and a half point rise from the previous IFOP poll. Royal lost three first round points to 22, her lowest score in six months. The survey showed that Sarkozy would comfortably beat her with 54 points to 46 in the second round.

Royal responded to the latest results by saying the pollsters were incapable of measuring opinions in a reliable way.

The French "aren't answering surveys anymore," Royal said, adding that young people in city suburbs weren't counted in the poll because they don't have fixed phone lines.

Sarkozy has much to lose if ethnic voters from city suburbs turn out in force. During the riots in there in late 2005, Sarkozy, who was then interior minister, called the rioting youths "scum" and was criticized for his tough policing.

Sarkozy has not yet made a campaign visit to the cities' fringes something even far-right Front National leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, managed last Friday in a symbolic visit to the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. It was from here that Sarkozy made his fateful "scum" comment.

Le Pen, who stunned the nation when he made it to second place in the 2002 election, is polling in fourth place behind former Education Minister Francois Bayrou.

The other contenders are three Trotskyite candidates, a Communist and a Green, anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove, a hunters' party candidate who champions rural interests and the Catholic nationalist Philippe de Villiers -- none of whom are expected to garner more than 3 percent of the vote.

"As sexy as a phone book"

Although the candidates have been sparring for months, Easter Monday marks the first day of the official election period when the 12 presidential candidates are allowed to put up posters in front of their 85,000 electoral offices. Each candidate also has 45 minutes of free time on public television and radio channels, split into commercials up to five and half minutes long.

Broadcasters are also now legally obliged to spread coverage of each candidate equally around the clock, strictly dividing interview time and reports on their campaigns.

In an editorial, the French daily Liberation warned the rules were based on "a neutrality that is as hypocritical as it is fictitious" and had "no chance of clearing the record levels of indecision that is the hallmark of this 2007 election."

"The 12 candidates will have the same space to develop their ideas, when only three of them -- Sarkozy, Royal and Bayrou -- have any chance of applying them as president."

The paper also complained that the rules would make the "television campaign about as sexy as reading the telephone book."

France is choosing a successor to 74-year-old Jacques Chirac, the veteran leader who has been in office since 1995.