Final rallies in French election

Mr Sarkozy has been trying to shed his tough-guy image

The main candidates in the French presidential election have held their final campaign rallies.

A new opinion poll indicates that centre-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy is still leading with 29%, ahead of the Socialist Segolene Royal at 25%.

The BVA poll also showed the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou slipping a few points to 15%.

But at least one-third of voters remain undecided ahead of Sunday's first round. A runoff is expected on 6 May.

All four main candidates headed south for their last rallies.

Click to see leading candidates' poll ratings

Mr Sarkozy appeared before 12,000 cheering supporters packed into a conference hall in Marseille, trying once again to shed the tough image he gained as interior minister.

"To unite the French people, to be able to speak on their behalf, to be able to govern, you must be able to love," he said.

He was joined on stage by footballer Basile Boli and a range of former prime ministers and ministers.

Thumping rock music

Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero appeared with Segolene Royal in the south-western city of Toulouse.

To the sound of thumping rock music and the cheers of about 15,000 supporters, she promised a "fairer and stronger" France.

"A France that does not discriminate against a job seeker because he does not have the right skin colour, the right name, the right address. This will be the fight."

Ms Royal promised to build a "fairer and stronger" France Europe Diary: A useful vote

Not far away in the town of Pau, Francois Bayrou, leader of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), said rising tensions in France concerned him.

"I want France to be secure and calmed," he said.

Far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, currently polling about 13%, spoke in the party's Riviera stronghold of Nice.

He said a "great national wave will sweep away the oligarchy". He came a surprise second in the 2002 election, beating the Socialist candidate to run against Jacques Chirac in the runoff.

Hard to predict

An editorial in the French daily Le Monde urged voters to send Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal into the second round, saying it was important for two differing "visions of society" to be represented in the runoff.

There are more than one million newly registered voters, the biggest increase in 25 years. Many of them are young people or French living abroad, whose voting intentions are hard to gauge, BBC European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu reports.

Another novelty is the use of electronic voting machines in some districts, criticised by the Socialists and some other opposition parties as dangerously unreliable. They will be used by 1.5 million voters.

Six out of 10 voters say they trust neither the left nor the right to govern the country, and one in eight is ready to switch allegiance, Oana Lungescu reports.

Ms Royal hopes to become France's first woman president, but left-wing voters are among the most volatile, surveys suggest. She has several rivals on the left who could undermine her support.