Sarkozy V Royal For Run-Offs

By Cernig

French exit polls are usually extraordinarily reliable, which is part of the reason they aren't released until after voting closes. The exit polls say it's Sarkozy by a neck in the first stage.

An Ipsos poll said that Mr Sarkozy, the tough-talking former interior minister, had won 28 per cent of the first round vote. Ms Royal, the Socialist who is trying to become France's first female president, won 25 per cent of the vote.

The two had been frontrunners in the polls throughout the campaign, but had to see off a determined campaign from the centrist Francois Bayrou - whose support crumbled towards the end of the campaign.

They also saw off Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-Right leader who produced the biggest shock in modern French political history when he made it to the run-offs in 2002.

The closeness of the result leaves the final result of the election wide open and will leave both candidates courting the supporters of their defeated rivals over the next fortnight.

How it goes from here is anybody's guess. Sarkozy has always been a hardliner when it comes to immigration, so he can expect to pick up a large percentage of Le Pen's racist followers. Royal, on the other hand, had a wider range of left-wing candidates splitting the left's vote in the early stages to contend with. She may well make up the gap.

One thing I'm sure about - if Royal wins then the US extreme Right, who hate Europe on general principles, will claim that France is sticking to "failed socialism". That's despite the facts that Royal is more in the lines of a Blairite and that Sarkozy represents the conservative establishment who have ruled French politics for the past two decades. Facts don't matter to the narrative.