France's presidential candidates made a final push for support on Friday, the last day of campaigning before Sunday's first round ballot with rightist Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal favourites to win.
But with millions of voters undecided, neither frontrunner was taking anything for granted after months of fierce political battles that have focused as much on personality as policy. "The French are facing a choice which is not easy, because they have to judge a project, a journey and a character," said Royal, who is seeking to become France's first woman president.
A campaign blackout comes into force at midnight, with a day for reflection on Saturday before the polls open on Sunday. A dozen candidates are seeking election and if, as expected, no one wins an absolute majority on April 22 the top two will meet in a second round ballot on May 6.
Sarkozy has led the opinion polls for months, but Royal has narrowed the gap and analysts say both centrist Francois Bayrou and far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen could yet cause an upset. In 2002, Le Pen stunned France by knocking out the Socialist candidate, to win a place in the run-off against sitting President Jacques Chirac, who secured a comprehensive victory.
Chirac, the last survivor of a political class formed by World War Two General Charles de Gaulle, is retiring after 12 years in power, and the poll frontrunners are in their early 50s, promising a generational change at the top of France.
The election campaign has run against a background of fears over jobs, immigration and security, with memories of riots in France's deprived suburbs in 2005 still fresh in the memory.
And there was a reminder of the potential for further trouble after camera crews filming at one of the centres of the 2005 violence near Paris were assaulted and robbed.
"COVERED IN SCARS": The last appearances of the candidates had heavy symbolic overtones, with Sarkozy riding a horse through a bull farm in the south, Royal at a trendy street market in Paris and Bayrou at a World War One memorial in Verdun.
"I have loved the campaign passionately and I've fought it with intensity," Sarkozy told reporters in the picturesque Camargue region. "A presidential campaign is obviously very demanding but I don't feel exhausted, I'm not feeling too bad."
The battle has increasingly focused on personalities over the past month - especially that of Sarkozy, who has been vilified as a dangerous, divisive force.
A law-and-order hard-liner and, by French standards, an economic liberal, he has tried to build a more soothing image, with tributes to figures like civil rights leader Martin Luther King and Pope John Paul II. But he has been hurt by the attacks.
"I am covered in scars," he told Le Parisien daily. Royal, an economic left-winger with a strong line in traditional social values, has presented herself as a healing force for a divided France. But she has had a rocky campaign, facing constant questions over her competence following a series of foreign policy gaffes.