Paris – French voters, many vacillating until the end, take a crucial step toward shaping their future in presidential elections today.
Should they choose Nicolas Sarkozy, blunt, reformist and pro-American – and frightening to many French? Or Segolene Royal, the smiling, feminist mother-figure with a more cautious plan for France? Or will the scholarly farmer’s son Francois Bayrou pull a surprise?
Voters will pare down a field of 12 presidential candidates to two favorites who go to the May 6 final round.
With unusually dynamic front-runners and a suspense-filled campaign, the election is bringing in voters who sat out the 2002 election or cast protest votes for the extreme left and right.
The anti-immigrant nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen is still counting on big support, though, and hopes to repeat his shock 2002 second-place finish.
Turnout is likely to be high this time, with voter registration numbers up nationwide – especially in rundown immigrant neighborhoods racked by rioting in 2005.
The successor to Jacques Chirac, who is stepping down after 12 years as president, must steer a nuclear power in an insecure world, revive a large and listless economy, invigorate a downbeat workforce and incorporate alienated young Muslims.
Restless French voters don’t seem to know themselves who is best-suited for the presidency, with about 40 percent of the electorate undecided.
