KEY POINTS:
PARIS - Voters in overseas territories began France's presidential election today, a day before the mainland, with opinion polls suggesting right-wing leader Nicolas Sarkozy will face Socialist Segolene Royal in a run-off.
About 1 million voters in territories from the tiny islands of St Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Canada to French Polynesia in the Pacific were eligible to vote before polling booths open on the mainland at 8am (1800 NZT) on Sunday.
An unexplained bomb attack on a bank in Marseille on Friday night, followed by clashes at a separatist protest in Corsica, caused some tension but the mood was otherwise calm. Five police were hurt in the Corsica protest. No one was hurt in Marseiile.
Sarkozy and Royal are expected to emerge ahead of thge other 10 candidates, who include Trotskyists, an anti-globalisation activist, a Green and two right-wing nationalists, to contest the second-round run-off on May 6.
But the opinion polls suggest up to a third of France's 44.5 million voters are not sure of their final choice and neither third-placed centrist Francois Bayrou and veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has given up hope.
Le Pen shocked France in the last election in 2002 by beating Socialist Lionel Jospin in the first round before losing a run-off to Jacques Chirac, who is not seeking a third term.
Sarkozy, a combative former interior minister, promises to crack down on crime and improve life for a "silent majority" of hard-working French. Royal, who is aiming to be France's first woman president, has pledged to re-unite a divided nation.
Initial partial results will be known soon after voting ends at 8pm (0600 NZT) on Sunday.
Jobs, globalisation and security have been at the heart of the campaign less than two years after riots in deprived housing estates laid bare the tensions simmering in poor suburbs hit by unemployment, racism and crime.
France's unemployment rate of more than eight per cent is one of the highest in the European Union and there has been a strong urge for renewal after Chirac's 12 years in power.
"France wants a change of air," left-wing newspaper Liberation said in an editorial. "Tired of its elites, it is looking for new leaders, new policies and a new republic."
Royal and Sarkozy have responded to the mood and campaigned as outsiders to a hidebound system of government, promising a break with the policies of the past decades.
Sarkozy, 52, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, was applauded by many voters for his tough response to the 2005 riots and financial markets see him as the candidate with the strongest attachment to free-market reforms.
But his hyperactive character scares many voters and rivals portray him as dangerously authoritarian.
Royal, who defied veteran leaders of her party to win the Socialist nomination, marred her campaign with a series of gaffes that prompted questions about her competence to lead the world's fifth-largest economy and a nuclear power.
She combines left-wing economic policy with conservative social ideas and unsettled many Socialists with proposals such as sending young offenders to boot camps and suggesting people keep flags at home to display on balconies on national holidays.
Her strategy of attacking Sarkozy's character in the last days of the campaign paid off in improved poll ratings.
But she has not quite removed the threat of Bayrou, 55, who has appealed to voters by promising to overcome the traditional right-left divide, cut public debt and help small business.
- REUTERS
