France braces for crucial vote

PARIS, France (CNN) -- After two weeks of turmoil, debate and anguished reflection, the French go to the polls Sunday to choose between incumbent President Jacques Chirac and far-right firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen as their next leader.

Le Pen's surprise second-place finish in the first round of presidential balloting April 21, which propelled him to a runoff against Chirac, shocked the French political establishment. But it also united a broad spectrum of French political parties -- left, center, and right -- that is expected to give Chirac a sweeping victory Sunday.

Polls are scheduled to open at 8 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) and close at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET).

Under French law, political activity was not allowed Saturday, quieting the almost daily anti-Le Pen protests that have erupted since he won a place in the runoff.

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Chirac, 69, the candidate of the center-right Rally for the Republic, is seeking a second term. But amid allegations of corruption and concern about rising crime, he could clear barely 20 percent of the vote in the first round against 15 other candidates.

Chirac was widely expected to face Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the second round. But Le Pen edged out Jospin, prompting the prime minister to announce his retirement from political life.

Jospin allies on the left have urged people to vote for Chirac, even if they find it distasteful, in order to stop Le Pen, whom they denounce as a dangerous extremist. Chirac, who refused to debate Le Pen, has made the same pitch.

"We must reject extremism in the name of the honor of France, in the name of the unity of our own nation," he said. "I call on all French to massively vote for republican ideals against the extreme right."

Pre-election polls showed Chirac receiving more than 75 percent of the vote Sunday. However, polls prior to the first round underestimated Le Pen's strength. In the closing days of the campaign, Le Pen told his supporters that he expects widespread fraud.

Le Pen, 73, leader of the National Front, is making his fourth try for France's top post. A former paratrooper with the Foreign Legion who lost an eye in a political brawl in 1956, he has taken a populist tone, urging the French people to reject traditional, mainstream politicians who he said failed to reduce crime, unemployment and immigration.

"As a man of the people, I will always be on the side of those who suffer," he said. "Because I know the cold, I know poverty. I want to rebuild the coherence of our great people."

France's top newspapers on Saturday urged readers to vote for Chirac to block the xenophobic far-right leader.

The left-wing daily Liberation printed the word "Yes" in big block letters on its cover over a drawing of a ballot being cast for Chirac -- evoking the huge front-page "No" it ran the morning after Le Pen knocked Jospin out of the race.

Under a banner headline that read "For France," the more conservative Le Figaro broke its tradition of not endorsing candidates and pledged its support to Chirac.

Earlier in the day Le Pen appeared uncharacteristically flustered by the strength of opposition against him. When asked in a BBC radio interview on Saturday if he could win, he replied: "I don't know. I hope so."

The conservative president has called his race against Le Pen "the fight of my life."

Le Pen's platform includes ending immigration, pulling France back from the European Union, restoring the death penalty, imposing tariffs to protect French industry and bringing back the franc, the national currency replaced last year by the euro. His calls for reserving jobs and social benefits for French citizens -- "France for the French" -- have led critics to brand him as racist and xenophobic.

Le Pen was found guilty in 1990 under a French law which bans denial of the Holocaust after he said Nazi gas chambers were a historical detail. But he steadfastly denies he is anti-Semitic.

French observers are now looking forward parliamentary elections and to seeing what impact the Le Pen phenomenon will have.

Those elections, held in two rounds on June 9 and 16, will determine the color of the next government and whether conservative Chirac again has to share power with the left after five years of "cohabitation" with Jospin.

Commentators say Sunday's vote could influence Chirac's choice of an interim prime minister to serve between May and June -- a sign of what could come if his conservatives were to win a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.

The favorites are provincial moderate Jean-Pierre Raffarin and the ambitious Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy.

"A high Le Pen score would push Chirac to the right, putting Sarkozy in the prime minister's office," Liberation wrote, saying a weak showing by Le Pen could keep Chirac closer to the political center.

The main question about Sunday's vote seemed to be about voter turnout.

A record 28 percent of France's 41.2 million voters stayed away in the first round and one third opted for candidates on the political extremes, disillusioned with the mainstream.