Final polls ahead of Sunday's runoff presidential election in France indicate that former interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy is set to score a big victory over his Socialist Party rival Segolene Royal.
Poll results published just before the mandatory end of campaigning Saturday showed that the center-right candidate Sarkozy could win the runoff by about nine percentage points.
Royal's support has flagged since Wednesday's televised debate with Sarkozy, in which he accused her of losing her temper. She made a last-ditch attempt Friday to narrow the gap by saying that Sarkozy's victory could cause violence in the largely immigrant French suburbs. That statement also appeared to turn some voters against Royal.
Polling stations for about one million French voters in the country's overseas territories opened Saturday to compensate for the time difference with mainland France.
Some 44 million voters are eligible to select a successor to outgoing President Jacques Chirac. Voting in mainland France begins at 8:00 AM local time Sunday.
Early polling opened in the island territories of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Canada's east coast, on the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and in French Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean.
Sarkozy and Royal were the top two finishers in the first round of French presidential elections April 22.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
