France votes to replace Chirac

FRANCE is voting in its most unpredictable presidential election in decades, with rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Segolene Royal favourites among a dozen contenders for next month's run-off ballot.

But opinion polls are showing millions still undecided despite months of frenzied campaigning, so both centrist candidate Francois Bayrou and far-right veteran Jean-Marie Le Pen are still hopeful of a second round spot on May 6.
"Anything can happen!" declared the front-page headline of Le Parisien, while the Journal du Dimanche said: "Incredible suspense for an historic vote."
Memories are vivid of the last presidential election in 2002, when the anti-immigrant Mr Le Pen shocked France and the world by qualifying for round two.
Mr Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, has pushed a right-wing program based on the themes of work and national identity but his tough talk sparked fears he would divide rather than unite the nation.
Ms Royal, an army officer's daughter with an almost permanent smile, has presented herself as a nurturing mother figure and has proposed a leftist economic program that would keep France's generous welfare system intact.
Mr Bayrou, a former Latin teacher, wants to end the left-right political divide by forming a national unity government.
All three come from a new generation of politicians, and in a campaign that has been as much about personalities as policies, all claimed to represent a break from a discredited past.
Whoever wins the presidency will have to deal with a huge public debt, stubbornly high unemployment and seething discontent in the high-immigration suburbs which in 2005 broke out into widespread rioting.
He or she will also need to soothe French angst about factories closing and shifting to China or India.
Around 44.5 million registered voters - an increase of 3.4 million on 2002 - were choosing a successor to Jacques Chirac, 74, who steps down next month after leading the country for 12 years.
In Argenteuil, one of the poor, high-immigration Paris suburbs where former interior minister Mr Sarkozy is a hate figure for many after making a speech denouncing "rabble" troublemakers, 40-year-old Samir said he had just voted for Ms Royal.
"Madame Royal will bring in more work, more liberty. Under Sarkozy people were pushed and pushed, they had no freedom," he said.
Some 65,000 polling booths opened at 8am local time (4pm AEST) and were due to close 12 hours later. Initial estimates of the result were expected the moment voting ends.
Only the two front-runners qualify for the second round.
For several months polls have consistently given a clear first round lead to Mr Sarkozy, the 52-year-old leader of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), who on Sunday morning cast his vote along with his wife Cecilia at a polling station in a Paris suburb.
Ms Royal, 53, has been in second place followed by Mr Bayrou, 55, and the 78 year-old Mr Le Pen - but the gap separating them has varied widely, fuelling the speculation over who will join Mr Sarkozy in the run-off.
Ms Royal, a former environment minister who wants to be France's first woman president, would be under threat if large numbers of left-wing voters switch tactically to Mr Bayrou in order to keep out Sarkozy, analysts said. Polls suggest that Mr Bayrou has the best chance of beating Sarkozy in the run-off.
Also running in the election are three Trotskyites, a Communist, a Green and anti-capitalist campaigner Jose Bove. The other two are a hunters' rights candidate and the Catholic nationalist Philippe de Villiers.