Fighting for the Middle Ground

Jospin and Chirac are struggling to show voters how they differ after sharing power for five years in an awkward but mostly smooth "cohabitation" power-sharing arrangement.

France's newspapers made much of a Louis Harris poll showing 75 percent of the French fail to see any major differences.

Left-leaning daily Liberation's headline was "Chirac-Jospin Still no difference" while Le Parisien voiced a Gallic shrug of indifference with its headline "Chirac-Jospin. So what?".

In trying now to regain his leftist credentials, Jospin is engaged in a difficult balancing act between winning back traditional left voters while not undoing the hard work done to ensure he appeals across the political spectrum.

Jospin and Chirac now agree on the kind of issues that has traditionally separated left and right. Both favour tax cuts, a tougher stance on crime and modest pension reform.

As a result, protest candidates on the far left and far right have won over 25 percent support in the opinion polls.

Pre-Election Glamour

Some 50 candidates, ranging from the wacky to the deadly earnest, hope to make their mark in the first round of voting to pick France's president on April 21.

A few will look no further than striptease artist Cindy Lee and her Party of Pleasure's ticket of "a sexier France".

"I don't know why I should be considered any less credible than the other candidates just because I take my clothes off," the curvy blond told the daily newspaper France Soir.

She is unlikely to make it into the second round and critics say she is only doing it to raise her personal profile.

Even so, just over a month before the first round of the presidential vote, polls show over half the public professing to have little or no interest in the election.

The first round of voting is on April 21, and the run-off on May 5.