Disappointment reigns as France votes

Elise (right) stayed in Paris to vote despite the sun

By Hugh Schofield in Paris

The queues were larger outside the boulangerie than at the polling booths Sunday morning near my home in the 14th arrondissement in southern Paris.

A lot of people will have got up, taken a look outside and driven out into the country

Polling station president

In warm spring sunshine, crowds swarmed around the food stalls in the Rue Daguerre, and the voting station round the corner on Rue Boulard contained more officials than punters.

"It's the weather," said the station president.

"It's the first good day of the year. A lot of people will have got up, taken a look outside and driven out into the country."

The good weather is one more factor stoking fears of a high abstention rate in this first round of the presidential election.

Stultifying

In the Paris area it is the middle of the school holidays, which means many families are not even at home.

	:	Voters' voices
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But most important has been the stultifying nature of the campaign.

	French elections Main candidates: Jacques Chirac, Lionel Jospin, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Arlette Laguiller, Jean-Perre Chevenement First round: 21 April, second round run-off between two leading candidates: 5 May Issues: crime, corruption, pensions, 35-hour week, employment, social security Polls open 0600 GMT and close at 1800 GMT First results: Exit polls to be announced as voting comes to an end, first results by midnight  Click here to read opinions from around France

"It's not that I am not interested in the election, it's just that I have been extremely disappointed in the level of the debate," Elise Traissac, a 28-year-old executive for a business services company, told me.

Elise has voted for Francois Bayrou, the 50 year-old leader of the centre-right Union for French Democracy party, because she likes his modernising, pro-European policies.

"People have real difficulties telling the difference between the programmes of (President Jacques) Chirac and (Prime Minister Lionel) Jospin. They are making all these promises now - but can't they see we've had five years to test them out already?" she asks.

"It's the politics of handing out sweeties, and the French have got too used to it. Look at Jospin's 35-hour week. Everyone loves it, but it's playing havoc with our competitivity. I spend half of my time at work organising rotas."

Old men

It's hard to believe that in France there are three Trotskyists in the race

Elise's boyfriend

For her German boyfriend, "What's so striking is the way the same people in their 60s are still dominating politics after all these years. We have elections in Germany this year too, and at least we have new faces.

"It's also hard to believe that in France there are three Trotskyists in the race - four if you count Jospin who used to be one. And that a far-right figure like Jean-Marie Le Pen is in third place," he says.

France's 40 million voters have a record choice of 16 contenders in the first round. The two candidates who emerge at the head of the pack when polls close will qualify for the deciding round on 5 May.

There seems little doubt that it will be Chirac and Jospin who make it through.

More of the same, in other words, which makes it all the more tempting in this first round for voters to try their luck elsewhere.