Presidential candidates clearly split left-right

PARIS -- France's presidential election today is a ground-breaker -- a choice between an immigrant's son and an army officer's daughter, each offering a radically different vision of how to put a dispirited nation back on track.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal are both mavericks who changed the rules of French politics and energized an electorate hungry for change. Their rise marks a generational shift, because whoever wins will be the nation's first president born after World War II.

Of three final polls, taken Wednesday and Thursday, one put them even and two gave Sarkozy the lead.

Sarkozy, a conservative, wants to free up labor markets, make the French work longer hours and whip them into shape for the global marketplace. Royal is the Socialist Party candidate who would save France's generous welfare system from the lash of Sarkozy's "neoconservative ideology."

Both have ideas for to restoring national self-confidence, which lately has been battered by economic decline, unrest in France's immigrant slums and shrinking clout in the new, united Europe which France once sought to lead.

During President Jacques Chirac's 12 years in office, little reform was accomplished. What happens in the post-Chirac era matters deeply to the public, judging by voter engagement.

Turnout in the April 22 first-round vote was an unusually high 84 percent.