French voters propel Segolene Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy to presidential runoff

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy holds an advantage over his Socialist rival Segolene Royal after the two advanced to the second round of France's presidential election, narrowing the vote to a choice between the tough-talking former interior minister or the first woman with a chance of becoming the country's leader.
The race is now on for voters in the middle ground and others who deserted the left and right in favour of farmer's son and legislator Francois Bayrou, who placed third on Sunday in one of the big surprises of the campaign.
Both Sarkozy and Royal planned rallies Monday night.
It won't be a "walk in the park" for Sarkozy even though he is in a strong position heading into the runoff, said Bruno Cautres, researcher at the prestigious Institute for Political Sciences.
With nearly all votes counted, Sarkozy had 31.1 per cent, followed by Royal with 25.8 per cent and Bayrou with 18.5 per cent. Turnout was 84.6 per cent - the highest in more than 40 years and just shy of the record set in 1965.
Royal is the first woman to get this close to the helm of this major European economic, military and diplomatic power. Sarkozy would be likely to push his anxious nation toward painful change.
Either way, France will get its first president with no memory of Second World War to replace the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac, who is stepping down after 12 years.
Sunday's first round of voting shut out 10 other hopefuls, from Trotskyists to far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen had hoped to repeat his shockingly strong showing of 2002 but instead finished a weak fourth with 10.5 per cent.
Both Sarkozy, a Hungarian immigrant's son, and Royal, a military officer's daughter who beat Socialist heavyweights to win her party's nomination, are in their 50s and have travelled long, arduous roads to get to this point.
The winner's task will be tough: France is a troubled country, still haunted by the riots by young blacks and Arabs in poor neighbourhoods in 2005.
Decades of stubbornly high unemployment, increasing competition from economies like China's, and a sense that France is losing influence in the world made this a passionate campaign. Both Royal and Sarkozy have promised to get France back on its feet - but offer starkly different paths for doing that.
Sarkozy would relax labour laws and cut taxes to invigorate the sluggish economy, while Royal would hike government spending and preserve the country's generous worker protections.
Royal, too, champions change but says it must not be brutal.
"I extend my hand to all those women and men who think, as I do, that it is not only possible but urgent to abandon a system that no longer works," she said.
The runoff offers "a clear choice between two very different paths," she said.
Outside Socialist Party headquarters in Paris, her supporters chanted "We're going to win!"
Sarkozy told cheering supporters Sunday night that by choosing him and Royal, voters "clearly marked their wish to go to the very end of the debate between two ideas of the nation, two programs for society, two value systems, two concepts of politics."
Despite his lead, the former interior minister faces a powerful "Anything But Sarkozy" push by those who call him too arrogant and explosive to run a nuclear-armed country. He once called young delinquents "scum," a remark that outraged the residents of poor neighbourhoods and has dogged him politically.
Royal, a legislator and feminist who says she makes political decisions based on what she would do for her children, shot to popularity by promising to run France differently. But she has stumbled on foreign policy. In one gaffe, she praised the Chinese during a trip to Beijing for their swift justice system.
Many voters question whether she is "presidential" enough to run France.
Sarkozy should be able to count on votes from the far right, whose champion Le Pen suffered his second-worst showing in five presidential elections.
Royal's score was the highest for a Socialist since Mitterrand in 1988. But closing the gap with Sarkozy could be a struggle in round two. Candidates to her left together scored about 11 per cent. They immediately swung behind her after their elimination, but their votes alone will not be enough to put Royal in power.
For that, she needs Bayrou. Sarkozy and Royal scoffed at Bayrou as unrealistic throughout the monthslong campaign, saying he would be incapable of forming a government with ministers on the left and right, or gain a parliamentary majority. Now his supporters hold the key to victory.
"French politics has changed as of tonight and will never again be the same ...," Bayrou said Sunday night after results were announced.
With results for the nearly one million French voters registered abroad still trickling in early Monday, turnout fell just short of the record of 84.8 per cent for a first round, set in 1965. That year, modern France held its first direct presidential election, with Second World War Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Socialist Francois Mitterrand reaching the runoff that de Gaulle went on to win.