Voters disillusioned as Sarkozy, Hollande fight for Elysee

Incumbent conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to have slipped into a disadvantage in respect of his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, according to the last opinion polls published at the close of the electoral campaign on Friday night.

Voting began yesterday in French overseas territories, including the north Atlantic islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon just off the coast of Canada, but will officially open at 8am until 6pm on mainland France with voting stations in big cities remaining open for two hours longer.

The first official results will be released after the last voting booths close at 8pm. today.

Hollande, who has promised to raise taxes on large corporations and people earning more than €1 million a year, kept himself narrowly ahead of Sarkozy for today's first-round vote, but will have to keep the momentum to remain on track towards the second round on 6 May, which would see the first Socialist President at Elysee Palace after 17 years.

But France's left-wing is cautious on the outcome as Hollande's promises have raised eyebrows in Brussels.

With the eurozone in crisis, Hollande's prospect to tax corporations and the rich has placed the strained finances of the EU's second largest economy in the spotlight.

Disappointed voters complained that the main candidates ignored the pressing challenges facing their country, mostly engaging in a blame-throwing campaign.

Candidates argued for weeks about halal meat and the cost of a driving licence. Even the leading
contenders tried to win the limelight with largely symbolic proposals, like Hollande's plan to scrap the word 'race' from the Constitution and Sarkozy's offer to bring monthly pension payments forward by eight days.

An Ifop poll in early April suggested that 32% of registered voters might not bother to vote today.

Hollande, mindful of an upset in 2002 when far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen knocked out Socialist Lionel Jospin in the first round amid the highest-ever abstention rate, warned supporters against complacency at a closing rally on Friday.

"It's the sixth of May when we will have a President but April 22 will decide the dynamic one way or another," he said.

After trailing Hollande for months, Sarkozy edged ahead in first-round voting intention polls for a few weeks, helped by his strong response to a shooting spree by an Al-Qaeda-inspired gunman who killed seven people in southwest France last month.

He lost that lead in the last week before the election, and polls on Friday showed Hollande winning the first round by 28% to 27, and taking the second by 55% to 45. It would be the first time in France's Fifth Republic - founded in 1958 - that an incumbent president has not finished top of the first round.

Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, a Communist-backed firebrand, has stormed into fourth place with around 14%, capitalising on frustration at economic stagnation and an anti-capitalist backlash against the world of finance.