Paris: French presidential candidates promising change for their disillusioned country made a last-minute push for votes on Thursday, with final flag-waving rallies, a publicity blitz and one big-name endorsement from Spain.
After 12 years under President Jacques Chirac, the French are eager for change. Turnout in Sunday's first round of voting is expected to be higher than in 2002, and polls show millions of voters still have not fully made up their minds.
Most of the 12 candidates were holding their last campaign rallies on Thursday before the weekend vote to whittle down the field to two for the decisive runoff on May 6.
Barring an enormous surprise, polls suggest only three candidates stand any chance of winning the election: Nicolas Sarkozy, a pro-American conservative; Socialist Segolene Royal, who would be France's first female president, and center-right candidate Francois Bayrou, who bills himself as the unifier that France needs.
Sarkozy has been the front-runner in every poll this year and has confidently posted countdown clocks on his Web site and party headquarters timed not for Sunday's balloting, but May 6.
Beyond that, the biggest questions are whether Bayrou or Royal will face Sarkozy or if far-right nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen can pull another upset. Le Pen stunned France and Europe by qualifying for the runoff against Chirac five years ago, but was trounced in the second round.
The vote will partly be one of personalities - the top candidates have often strayed from party orthodoxies, plucking ideas from the political left and right to revive a lackluster economy and better integrate millions of black and Arab citizens from poor areas swept up by three weeks of rioting in 2005.
''The three candidates who can today hope to win are very popular people, and that's why there's also a keen interest,'' said Pierre Giacometti, director of the Ipsos agency. ''We cannot exclude the possibility that Sunday we will have a very high participation rate - around 80 percent.''
Royal, whose gaffes on trips abroad cost her candidacy some momentum, sought to inject some gravitas into her bid Thursday by bringing Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to speak at a rally in southern Toulouse.
Spain's Socialist premier - the first major international leader to publicly take sides in the Frenchelection this year - was effusive in his support for Royal.
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''Segolene incarnates personal impetuousness, a fresh character and optimism,'' Zapatero told an estimated 15,000 supporters at the rally. ''Segolene incarnates a project of transformation, democratization and modernization. A person like her can become the president of the French people.''
Sarkozy's rally Thursday in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille also attracted thousands of enthusiastic supporters. Sarkozy's team targeted undecided voters with a promotional blitz, in which more than 20,000 supporters were handing out fliers and other freebies. They hosted a ski race in the Alps and games of petanque - French bowling - in Paris.
Bookmakers have been cashing in on the uncertainty.
''There's been incredible interest in the election,'' said Sharon McHugh of Irish bookmaker Paddy Power. ''People from all over the world are betting on this election. The Americans, English, French and even the Irish are taking a big interest.''
''It's a wide-open race,'' she said. Odds have varied, though Sarkozy remains the favorite - in part mirroring the latest polls.
On the streets of Paris, many were either undecided or said they planned to vote more ''against'' than ''for.''
''They're all bad. This isn't about who you vote for, but who you vote against,'' said Gregory Mancuso, a 20-year-old Paris restaurant worker who supports Sarkozy for his experience as a former interior minister. ''I don't like the man himself - he's too arrogant and too nervous - but there's nobody else.''
University student Thomas Gregoire said he would vote for Royal, ''because I think we must stop Sarkozy.''
In surveys released Thursday, Sarkozy garnered 28 and 30 percent, Royal tallied 23-25 per cent, Bayrou had 18-19 percent and Le Pen fetched 13-14 percent. The two polls of 1,000 and 1,200 registered voters by the TNS-Sofres and Ipsos agencies were conducted this week. The margin of error for polls of that size is roughly plus or minus three percentage points.
Most polls show Bayrou is the only candidate who could defeat Sarkozy if he makes it to the runoff.
French voters' intentions are notoriously tough to predict, and polls show that as many as two in five voters say they have not yet made up their minds.
Candidates are required to stop campaigning by midnight Friday. Voting begins Saturday in French overseas territories in and near the Caribbean and in the Pacific Ocean.
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