Results of two opinion surveys showed France’s three principle candidates closing in further a week ahead of the first round of the elections.

The two polls by CSA and IFOP were published in LeParisien and Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday.

The CSA poll showed that the center-right candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) Party and the former Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy still led the with 26 % of votes, down one percent since the previous poll taken on April 10 and 11.

The Socialist candidate Segolene Royal who bids to become France’s first female president lost two points but …

Ségolène Royal was selected by the French Socialist Party on November 17, 2006 to be the party’s candidate for the election. She is the first woman to represent a major French party in a Presidential contest.
François Bayrou was nominated by the Union for French Democracy (UDF) on December 2, 2006. The centrist party, a longtime ally of the UMP, has now embarked on a course of more marked independence.
Nicolas Sarkozy was nominated by the Union for a Popular Movement on January 14, 2007. However, according to the UMP’s statutes, UMP members are allowed to run as independent candidates. This also …

Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932 in Paris) has served as the President of France since he was first elected in 1995. He won a re-election in 2002. His current term expires on May 17, 2007. As President he is an ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d’honneur. After completing studies at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and the École Nationale d’Administration, Jacques Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, and soon entered politics. He has since occupied various senior positions, such as Minister of Agriculture, Prime Minister, Mayor of …

The 2007 French presidential election will be the ninth such election of the Fifth French Republic. It is assumed that the first round of voting will take place on Sunday, April 22, 2007, with a second round (if necessary, which usually is the case) on Sunday, May 6, 2007.